Qatar's primary data protection legislation is Law No. 13 of 2016 on Personal Data Privacy Protection (PDPPL), which came into effect in 2017. This law, one of the first comprehensive data protection laws in the Middle East, aligns with universal data protection principles similar to the GDPR. Key aspects relevant to phone numbers include:
y defines "personal data" as any data relating to an identified natural person. This unequivocally covers phone numbers.
Consent: A fundamental principle of the PDPPL is that any processing of personal data requires the prior, explicit, and unambiguous consent of the individual. This is a critical barrier to the creation and use of unsolicited phone number lists. Consent must be easily given and easily withdrawn.
Purpose Limitation: Personal data can only be collected for specific, legitimate purposes, and its use must be limited to those purposes.
Data Subject Rights: Individuals in Qatar have rights to bahrain phone number library access, rectify, erase, restrict processing, and object to the processing of their data, particularly for direct marketing.
National Cyber Governance and Assurance Affairs (NCGAA): This body oversees the implementation of the PDPPL, provides guidance, investigates complaints, and can impose sanctions for non-compliance.
These comprehensive legal provisions make the public dissemination of a vast personal phone number directory fundamentally illegal and impractical.
Telecommunications and Anti-Spam Regulations:
Qatar's telecommunications market is dominated by major operators like Ooredoo Qatar and Vodafone Qatar. While these companies manage extensive subscriber databases, they are legally bound by customer privacy agreements and the PDPPL. They do not provide comprehensive public directories of individual phone numbers.
Regarding unsolicited commercial communications, the Communications Regulatory Authority (CRA), alongside the Ministry of Economy, has tightened regulations. While a formal "Do Not Call" (DNC) register for consumers has been established.