The Saudi Arabia Personal Data Protection Law (PDPL Saudi Arabia) is the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s data protection regulation. If you work in the region, particularly in the data space, then you’ve likely heard about PDPL Saudi Arabia. And if you operate on Saudi citizens’ data, this post will still apply to you. Read on to learn what it entails and how Delphix by Perforce can help your organization comply with it.
What Does the Saudi Arabia Personal Data Protection Law Entail?
PDPL Saudi Arabia regulates personal data processing in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The regulation came into effect on 14 September 2023. Authorities gave data custodians a year to bring their data practices into compliance with the regulation.
PDPL Saudi Arabia is largely modeled after the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Like GDPR, PDPL holds organizations accountable to protect the personal data of its constituents.
There are some major differences between PDPL and GDPR, according to OneTrust Data Guidance:
- PDPL Saudi Arabia does not directly mention data anonymization or data pseudonymization.
- The law doesn’t offer the right to object to personal data processing.
- PDPL Saudi Arabia doesn’t provide an explicit right to data portability.
Which Organizations Must Comply with PDPL Saudi Arabia?
Any organizations that process personal data in Saudi Arabia — or process personal data from Saudia Arabia citizens — must comply with PDPL Saudi Arabia, per global law firm DLA Piper.
Compliance with PDPL Saudi Arabia extends to service providers, according to global law firm Dentons. Contracts with service providers must contain provisions that require PDPL compliance.
A key element of PDPL Saudi Arabia concerns cross-border data transfers. PDPL limits personal data transfers outside of Saudi Arabia. Countries can only receive data if Saudi Arabia determines that they either adequately protect personal data or possess adequate data protection safeguards. The Saudi Arabian government has not yet published a formalized list of countries with appropriate data protection safeguards.
PDPL-compliant organizations should also consider Saudi Arabia’s broader legal and regulatory framework. Sector-specific frameworks of relevance in this regard include those issued by the Saudi Central Bank, the National Cybersecurity Authority, and the Communication, Space, and Technology Commission.
What are PDPL Saudi Arabia’s Non-Compliance Penalties?
Like GDPR, PDPL Saudi Arabia carries stiff penalties for non-compliance. The data privacy risks are severe. Organizations that disclose or publish sensitive data can be fined SAR 3 million (USD $800,000), per Dentons. PDPL Saudi Arabia can also impose prison sentences of up to two years for violations.
Complying with Saudi Arabia’s PDPL legislation is especially important for sensitive data in non-production environments. The 2024 State of Data Compliance and Security report revealed that 75% of organizations have seen growth in sensitive data volume in the past year.
91% of organizations are concerned about this expanded exposure footprint in non-production. And 86% are worried about regulatory compliance, including regulations such as PDPL Saudi Arabia.
The State of Data Compliance and Security Report
Sensitive data is growing, and protecting it is becoming more challenging. Find out what 250 enterprise leaders are doing to protect sensitive data in non-production environments. Get your copy of the report now.
How to Comply with the Saudi Arabia Personal Data Protection Law in Non-Production Environments
Discover Sensitive Data
Sensitive data is rising in development, testing, analytics, and AI/ML environments. These non-production environments are inherently less governed and secured than production systems. This makes them natural regulatory vulnerabilities.
But slow manual efforts to discover and protect sensitive data can take weeks and months. And it's an effort that will need to be repeated to identify new sensitive data being introduced as applications and business capability are developed. This is especially true for large-scale, complex enterprise estates. Inefficient compliance processes like these can also bottleneck software development, analytics, and AI efforts.
Perforce Delphix eliminates sensitive data risks in non-production environments. It also accelerates innovation in software development, analytics, and AI.
Delphix automatically discovers sensitive data. Delphix accomplishes this using its advanced sensitive data discovery (ASDD) mechanism. ASDD provides a full inventory of sensitive data and automatically assigns an algorithm to mask particular types of data in appropriate ways.
Discover more >> What Is Delphix?
Mask Sensitive Data
Delphix replaces sensitive data with fictitious, production-like data. The platform accomplishes this by using a rich library of pre-built and customizable algorithms. This technique is also known as static data masking (or just data masking).
With Delphix, you can automate masking for compliance with PDPL Saudi Arabia while ensuring full data utility. And you can rapidly deliver your compliant data to downstream teams when and where they need it. Delphix can also scale from the smallest SQL server to massive, billion-row analytical sources.
Data fields are often related. So, users cannot change one field without reference to another field. For example, a policy claim date in a database may need to come after the policy start date. These requirements typically make data masking complex since users would need to build the functionality themselves.
Delphix provides mechanisms that simplify the process of masking related fields consistently.
The DevOps Data Platform allows users to mask related fields while maintaining their order and the fields’ relationship to each other.
Delphix offers three types of masking algorithms:
- Out-of-the-Box Algorithms: Delphix offers a number of pre-made, standard algorithms that are immediately ready for use.
- Customizable Algorithm Frameworks: These frameworks help non-technical users create complex, customizable algorithms without the need to code.
- Masking Algorithm Software Development Kit (SDK): This SDK allows users to create bespoke masking algorithms.
All of these masking algorithms mask data deterministically. This means we mask the same data values in the same way every time we run masking. Doing so provides referential integrity both inside databases and across the enterprise. Deterministic masking lets you run end-to-end testing across all your applications using the same masked data.
We surveyed 250 global enterprise leaders for our 2024 State of Data Compliance and Security report. 66% are using static data masking to protect non-production data and ensure regulatory compliance, including PDPL Saudi Arabia.
Achieve Compliance Without Trade-Offs
With Delphix, you can achieve compliance with PDPL Saudi Arabia. Delphix data masking replaces real data values with fictitious yet realistic data values that automatically comply with virtually all data privacy regulations.
With Delphix, you can also accelerate the speed and quality of software development and analytics initiatives while complying with regulations such as PDPL Saudi Arabia. No trade-offs necessary.
Request a Delphix compliance demo today and see how Delphix can help your organization comply with PDPL Saudi Arabia.