Personal data protection in focus at BBBF

A new personal data protection law which will be implemented in Bahrain starting 1 August 2019 was the focus of a panel discussion at Bahrain British Business Forum (BBBF). The discussion, held during the breakfast networking meeting of BBBF’s special interest group (SIG) for legal, shed light on how the new law will give individuals and entities in Bahrain rights on how their data can be collected, processed and stored.

The meeting was opened by Nicholas Williams, the head of BBBF’s legal SIG and Partner at Newton Legal Group. The specialist panel of leading legal practitioners were Nadia AlJaber (Associate, Newton Legal Group), Ahmed AlFardan (Associate, Newton Legal Group) and Basma Naseeb (Legal Specialist, Bahrain Economic Development Board).

The panellists highlighted that several other countries have adopted similar laws, such as the implementation of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) by the European Union. Consequently, businesses need to understand whether the law applies to them and how they can attain consent from data owners. The new law will act as the regulatory law for data protection and imposes several obligations on data processing.