The United Arab Emirates (UAE) launched its Federal Personal Data Protection (PDP) Law in 2022. This law provides a framework that helps companies ensure the security and privacy of consumers’ personal information and protects and empowers UAE citizens’ and residents’ data privacy rights.

According to the PDP law, organizations will be required to establish a privacy program to protect the privacy rights of individuals in the UAE through a structured and collaborative approach. Here is how you can ensure your organization’s compliance with the PDP law:

Transparency:

The UAE PDP law requires businesses to ensure greater visibility and control, specifically for personal data. You can map out the collection, storage, processing, and transfer of personal data to guarantee a complete overview of your internal data usage. You will be able to fulfil the obligations such as providing privacy notices, maintaining a record of processing activities, fulfilling data-subject requests, and ensuring confidentiality and integrity.

Fair and legitimate process:

While the UAE PDP Law does not impose restrictions on collecting or processing personal data, it expects businesses to ensure that personal data is processed legally and fairly. The first step to ensure compliance (where necessary) is to set up a mechanism to obtain and record consent from da subjects to continue processing their personal data. You can also review your business processes to ensure the processing of personal data is legitimate and acceptable by law. Furthermore, you can ensure that your processes consistently align with the legal requirements by periodically reviewing your privacy policies. 

Privacy risk assessment and breach notification:

The UAE PDP law propagates proactive risk analysis and mitigation for possible privacy risks. Therefore, the periodic review of your personal data processing with a clear focus on enabling maximum privacy is essential. You should also ensure that your business is ready with a mitigation plan to minimize the impact on data subjects. You must also lay out a mechanism to meticulously report data breaches or violations that may impact its privacy, confidentiality, or security within specific time periods as prescribed by the law.

Data destruction policy:

As of 2022, data breaches could, quite literally, cost your organization 5% of top-line revenue in the legal costs alone. It is, therefore, essential to have a comprehensive policy to ensure that your organization is retaining or disposing of the data as per the legal obligations. You must also keep a record of all the data retention and destruction. For a soundproof data destruction policy, you can

  • Review all the data your organization is storing and why
  • Assess all the data your organization has to identify redundant, outdated and unimportant data to decide which kind of data you would need to destroy
  • Clearly outline how you would like the data destroyed and how often

A secure data destruction partner can help you decide upon the most environment-friendly and secure data destruction methods for your needs.

Outsourcing your data shredding to EndoShred gives you the advantage of assured secure data collection and on-site data destruction and shredding. We provide secure shredding services for everything including documents, electronic media like hard drives, media tapes, CDs/DVDs, etc., and other speciality materials like credit/debit cards, uniforms, promotional merchandise, etc.

For inquiries about EndoShred’s shredding services near you, contact us at +971 4 4310337