Saudi Arabia: Opened consultation on Personal Data Protection Law Amendments including cross-border data transfer regulation

On 20 November 2022, the Saudi Authority for Data and Artificial Intelligence released a draft amendment to the Personal Data Protection Law of 2021 and opened a public consultation until 20 December 2022. Under this amendment, the transfer of data outside Saudi Arabia would be allowed as long as the data protection standards in the other jurisdiction are equal or higher to those applicable in Saudi Arabia. Furthermore, the draft amendment specifies that the data authority will adopt evaluation criteria and notes that entities transferring data outside the country will have to ensure that they are sending the minimum amount of personal data required.