Failing to treat personal information in accordance with legislative requirements and best practice can have an adverse effect on a company's reputation, its employees and its customers.

Specific data protection regimes are now in place in many jurisdictions. Awareness of the implications of data protection and privacy issues is increasing around the globe, including in the Middle East, where there have been a number of related developments in recent months.

Clyde & Co's Commercial Group will be publishing a series of data protection bulletins in the near future on a number of matters relating to data protection and privacy in certain jurisdictions in the Middle East.

This article provides a brief overview of data protection and privacy in the UAE.

UAE

The UAE does not have a specific data protection law. There are, however, a number of provisions in a number of different laws that relate to data protection and privacy.

The principle of a right to privacy of personal information is enshrined in the UAE Constitution and arises again in a number of different UAE laws.