Report
UAE PDPL: what the data-protection law means for health data
Federal Decree-Law No. 45 of 2021 governs personal data, with tighter rules on health information and cross-border transfer.
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The UAE Personal Data Protection Law — Federal Decree-Law No. 45 of 2021 — came into effect in January 2022. Modelled partly on the GDPR but adapted to the region, it balances privacy with economic and technological development.
For healthcare, the law sets strict conditions on processing health information and on transferring it outside the UAE. Commentary through 2025 pointed to enforcement maturing, with the interaction between the federal law, free-zone frameworks and sector rules remaining a live compliance question.
Abu Dhabi layers its own ADHICS standard on top for confidentiality, integrity and availability of healthcare information. Platforms handling claims data need per-organisation isolation, encryption and full audit trails to meet these expectations — the foundations DataHub is built on.
Source: International Bar Association. This summary is DataHub's own; please refer to the original for full detail.