Saudi Arabia: Opened consultation on Personal Data Protection Law Amendments including data protection regulations

On 20 November 2022, the Saudi Authority for Data and Artificial Intelligence released a draft outlining amendments to the Personal Data Protection Law of 2021 and opened a public consultation until 20 December 2022. The draft amendments aim to expand the scope of the Personal Data Protection Law. In particular, the foreign entities processing the data of individuals located within the country, including the personal data of deceased individuals, will have to comply with the data processing requirements. Firstly, the draft outlines the subject data rights, including the right to be informed on the purpose of data collection and access, rectify and delete personal data. Secondly, the draft amendments state that entities collecting and processing personal data have to obtain consent from data subjects and outline exceptions in which data processing is not subject to the consent requirement. Finally, the draft notes that entities collecting and processing personal data have to adopt a privacy policy and provide it to data subjects.