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United Arab EmiratesChecked 18 August 2026

Depends on your industryWork: HighEnforcement: Waking up

In one paragraph: The national privacy law has been in force since January 2022, but the rules that make it work were never written, so almost none of it can be enforced. Meanwhile the industries that matter have hard walls: health records, payment data, insurance data and identity-check reports must stay inside the country. Two financial districts run their own separate privacy systems, and those regulators do issue penalties.
The catch: The relaxed national picture is false the moment you touch health, payments, insurance, credit and identity checks, or government data. The national law expressly does not cover health data, banking data, government data, or companies inside the financial free zones. For most regulated businesses the national law is not the rule that binds them.
Does this apply to me?: Yes. The national privacy law reaches a company with no office in the country, as long as it handles the personal data of people inside the country. There is no revenue or headcount threshold to hide under. But the law carves out huge areas: government bodies, government data, health data, banking and credit data, and companies inside the financial free zones that have their own privacy laws.High confidence
Can the data leave the country?: It depends entirely on your industry. Under the national law data can leave once you have the right paperwork, and in practice nobody is checking. But four industries have real walls. Health records may not be stored or sent abroad at all. Payment data must be stored inside the country. Insurance data must be stored inside the country. And since April 2026 the national identity-check report may not be taken out of the country at all.High confidence
What do I have to do to send it abroad?: On paper the model is an approved-destinations list. The regulator is supposed to name countries whose protection is good enough, and no list has ever been published. So in practice everyone uses the fallback route: a contract with the recipient promising equivalent protection, or the person's explicit consent, or a narrow necessity exception. No government permission is needed and no filing is made, because the rules that would create those steps were never written.High confidence
Who enforces this — and are they actually working?: On paper the UAE Data Office. In practice it has never enforced anything: it has no public website, it has published no approved-destinations list, and the government decision that would set the fines has not been made. The regulators that really bite are elsewhere — the central bank fined a foreign bank branch about 5.4 million dollars in June 2026, and the data protection commissioner in the Abu Dhabi financial district has issued published penalty notices.Medium confidence
How long must I keep it, and when must I delete it?: The floors are long and they are set by industry, not by the privacy law. Health records must be kept for at least 25 years after the last treatment. Payment data must be kept for 5 years with a separate backup. Identity-check reports must be kept for at least 5 years. There is no working national deletion deadline, because the detailed rules that would set one were never issued.High confidence
What happens when something goes wrong?: There is no national deadline in hours today. The privacy law says you must tell the regulator as soon as you discover a breach, and leaves the actual timing and the wording of the notice to detailed rules that were never issued. So the clocks that really run are the ones set by your own regulator: the central bank for financial firms, and the separate data protection offices in the two financial districts. The national cyber incident reporting service is aimed at government bodies, not at private companies.Medium confidence
What's the trap?: Five things that cost people their weekend. One: the national privacy law does not cover health data, banking data, government data, or companies in the financial free zones, so most regulated firms are not governed by it at all. Two: health data may not leave the country, ever, and the fine is up to about 190 thousand dollars. Three: since April 2026 the national identity-check report may not be sent abroad. Four: a child is anyone under 18, but the parental consent line is drawn at 13. Five: there are two extra legal systems inside the country, and their regulators actually issue penalties.High confidence
What's about to change?: The single biggest thing is a rule that could appear on any Tuesday. When the government finally publishes the detailed rules under the privacy law, every company gets six months to comply and the law switches from decorative to real. Nothing signals when that will happen. In the meantime the new child safety law needs its penalty schedule, and the national identity-check platform is being rolled out across banks.Medium confidence
Hardest industry wall: Health and social care — Federal Law No. (2) of 2019 Concerning the Use of the Information and Communications Technology in Health Fields
Payments — Retail Payment Services and Card Schemes Regulation
Insurance — Insurance Authority Board of Directors' Resolution No. (18) of 2020 Concerning the Electronic Insurance Regulations
Banking — Cabinet Resolution No. (55) of 2026 Promulgating the Executive Regulations of Federal Decree-Law No. (30) of 2024 Regarding the "Know Your Customer" Digital Platform

SerbiaChecked 18 August 2026

Yes, with paperworkWork: HighEnforcement: Active

In one paragraph: Serbia copied Europe's privacy law almost word for word, so the duties feel familiar. Data can leave the country, and for most of Europe and a long list of other countries it can leave with no paperwork at all. The privacy regulator is busy — over a thousand inspections in 2025 — but it hands out warnings, not fines. The biggest fine any Serbian court imposed for a privacy breach in 2025 was about $950.
The catch: Two industries break the general picture. Online gambling operators must keep a copy of their whole player and transaction database physically inside Serbia. Banks, insurers and other financial firms cannot move any IT work abroad without telling the central bank 30 days ahead, proving the foreign country would let Serbian supervisors inspect on site, and risking a veto that forces them to cancel the contract.
Does this apply to me?: Yes. The law reaches a company anywhere in the world if it offers goods or services to people in Serbia, or watches what they do in Serbia. There is no size or revenue threshold to hide behind. If you are caught this way you must appoint a written representative living or based in Serbia, unless your processing is occasional and low risk or you are a public body.High confidence
Can the data leave the country?: Yes, with paperwork — and often with none at all. Serbia treats a very long list of countries as automatically safe: every member of the Council of Europe's data protection treaty, which covers all of Europe plus Argentina, Mexico, Morocco, Mauritius, Senegal, Tunisia, Uruguay, Cape Verde and others, and separately every country the European Union has approved. Sending data there needs no permission and no contract. Everywhere else you sign the Commissioner's standard contract or use approved group rules. Only one industry has a hard wall: online gambling. Banking has a gate rather than a wall.High confidence
What do I have to do to send it abroad?: First check the destination. If it is on the safe list, you need nothing — no contract, no filing, no approval. If it is not, you sign the standard contract the Serbian regulator published in January 2020, or you get approved group-wide rules. If you want to use your own wording instead of the standard contract, the regulator must approve it and has 60 days to answer. As a last resort there are narrow exceptions such as the person's explicit consent.High confidence
Who enforces this — and are they actually working?: The Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection, and it is genuinely working. In 2025 it finished 1,169 inspections, received 5,310 cases and issued 102 corrective orders. But it almost never fines. Of those 102 orders, 101 were warnings and one was a ban on processing. It asked the courts to punish only three organisations all year. Banks answer to the National Bank of Serbia instead, and it is fully active. A brand-new Office for Information Security exists on paper since October 2025 but we could find no sign it is running yet.High confidence
How long must I keep it, and when must I delete it?: There is no single national rule. The privacy law says keep data only as long as you need it, and each sector sets its own clock. Online gambling operators must keep every transaction for at least ten years. Phone and internet companies must keep who-called-whom records for exactly 12 months and then destroy them. Anyone selling a phone line must keep the customer's identity check for 12 months after the service ends. Financial firms must keep a live register of every outsourced service, including which countries the data sits in.High confidence
What happens when something goes wrong?: Count three clocks. Privacy breach: tell the Commissioner without delay and at the latest within 72 hours, and if you miss that you must explain why. Cyber incident: if you run an information system the state has classed as important, you have only 24 hours to report it. Then a third clock starts — updates every 24 hours for a serious incident, every three days for a middling one, and a final report within 15 days of the incident ending. Banks report cyber incidents to the central bank instead, promptly, with no fixed hour count.High confidence
What's the trap?: Five. (1) A child can consent for themselves at 15, not 13 or 16 — plan your age gates around 15. (2) A foreign court order or foreign tax authority demand for data is recognised in Serbia only if a treaty backs it, so handing data to an overseas authority on request can itself be unlawful. (3) Individuals, not just companies, can be prosecuted; the regulator has filed 49 criminal complaints since 2010. (4) Dozens of older Serbian laws still contradict the privacy law and were never fixed. (5) The government's official list of safe destination countries has not been touched since 2019 and still names a United States framework that died in 2020.High confidence
What's about to change?: One dated change and several unscheduled ones. From 1 January 2027 the ministry formally takes over supervising the new Office for Information Security, which should mean the office is actually up and running by then. A rewrite of the privacy law is being drafted by a special working group covering video surveillance, biometrics, genetic data and artificial intelligence, and a separate group is drafting an artificial intelligence law. Neither has been published as a bill, so neither is binding.High confidence
Hardest industry wall: Online gaming — Pravilnik o informaciono-komunikacionom sistemu za priređivanje posebnih igara na sreću preko sredstava elektronske komunikacije

The eight framework questions answered for each selected country
Question	United Arab EmiratesChecked 18 August 2026	SerbiaChecked 18 August 2026
The three ratings	Depends on your industry Work: High Enforcement: Waking up	Yes, with paperwork Work: High Enforcement: Active
In one paragraph	The national privacy law has been in force since January 2022, but the rules that make it work were never written, so almost none of it can be enforced. Meanwhile the industries that matter have hard walls: health records, payment data, insurance data and identity-check reports must stay inside the country. Two financial districts run their own separate privacy systems, and those regulators do issue penalties.	Serbia copied Europe's privacy law almost word for word, so the duties feel familiar. Data can leave the country, and for most of Europe and a long list of other countries it can leave with no paperwork at all. The privacy regulator is busy — over a thousand inspections in 2025 — but it hands out warnings, not fines. The biggest fine any Serbian court imposed for a privacy breach in 2025 was about $950.
The catch	The relaxed national picture is false the moment you touch health, payments, insurance, credit and identity checks, or government data. The national law expressly does not cover health data, banking data, government data, or companies inside the financial free zones. For most regulated businesses the national law is not the rule that binds them.	Two industries break the general picture. Online gambling operators must keep a copy of their whole player and transaction database physically inside Serbia. Banks, insurers and other financial firms cannot move any IT work abroad without telling the central bank 30 days ahead, proving the foreign country would let Serbian supervisors inspect on site, and risking a veto that forces them to cancel the contract.
Does this apply to me?	Yes. The national privacy law reaches a company with no office in the country, as long as it handles the personal data of people inside the country. There is no revenue or headcount threshold to hide under. But the law carves out huge areas: government bodies, government data, health data, banking and credit data, and companies inside the financial free zones that have their own privacy laws.High confidence	Yes. The law reaches a company anywhere in the world if it offers goods or services to people in Serbia, or watches what they do in Serbia. There is no size or revenue threshold to hide behind. If you are caught this way you must appoint a written representative living or based in Serbia, unless your processing is occasional and low risk or you are a public body.High confidence
Can the data leave the country?	It depends entirely on your industry. Under the national law data can leave once you have the right paperwork, and in practice nobody is checking. But four industries have real walls. Health records may not be stored or sent abroad at all. Payment data must be stored inside the country. Insurance data must be stored inside the country. And since April 2026 the national identity-check report may not be taken out of the country at all.High confidence	Yes, with paperwork — and often with none at all. Serbia treats a very long list of countries as automatically safe: every member of the Council of Europe's data protection treaty, which covers all of Europe plus Argentina, Mexico, Morocco, Mauritius, Senegal, Tunisia, Uruguay, Cape Verde and others, and separately every country the European Union has approved. Sending data there needs no permission and no contract. Everywhere else you sign the Commissioner's standard contract or use approved group rules. Only one industry has a hard wall: online gambling. Banking has a gate rather than a wall.High confidence
What do I have to do to send it abroad?	On paper the model is an approved-destinations list. The regulator is supposed to name countries whose protection is good enough, and no list has ever been published. So in practice everyone uses the fallback route: a contract with the recipient promising equivalent protection, or the person's explicit consent, or a narrow necessity exception. No government permission is needed and no filing is made, because the rules that would create those steps were never written.High confidence	First check the destination. If it is on the safe list, you need nothing — no contract, no filing, no approval. If it is not, you sign the standard contract the Serbian regulator published in January 2020, or you get approved group-wide rules. If you want to use your own wording instead of the standard contract, the regulator must approve it and has 60 days to answer. As a last resort there are narrow exceptions such as the person's explicit consent.High confidence
Who enforces this — and are they actually working?	On paper the UAE Data Office. In practice it has never enforced anything: it has no public website, it has published no approved-destinations list, and the government decision that would set the fines has not been made. The regulators that really bite are elsewhere — the central bank fined a foreign bank branch about 5.4 million dollars in June 2026, and the data protection commissioner in the Abu Dhabi financial district has issued published penalty notices.Medium confidence	The Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection, and it is genuinely working. In 2025 it finished 1,169 inspections, received 5,310 cases and issued 102 corrective orders. But it almost never fines. Of those 102 orders, 101 were warnings and one was a ban on processing. It asked the courts to punish only three organisations all year. Banks answer to the National Bank of Serbia instead, and it is fully active. A brand-new Office for Information Security exists on paper since October 2025 but we could find no sign it is running yet.High confidence
How long must I keep it, and when must I delete it?	The floors are long and they are set by industry, not by the privacy law. Health records must be kept for at least 25 years after the last treatment. Payment data must be kept for 5 years with a separate backup. Identity-check reports must be kept for at least 5 years. There is no working national deletion deadline, because the detailed rules that would set one were never issued.High confidence	There is no single national rule. The privacy law says keep data only as long as you need it, and each sector sets its own clock. Online gambling operators must keep every transaction for at least ten years. Phone and internet companies must keep who-called-whom records for exactly 12 months and then destroy them. Anyone selling a phone line must keep the customer's identity check for 12 months after the service ends. Financial firms must keep a live register of every outsourced service, including which countries the data sits in.High confidence
What happens when something goes wrong?	There is no national deadline in hours today. The privacy law says you must tell the regulator as soon as you discover a breach, and leaves the actual timing and the wording of the notice to detailed rules that were never issued. So the clocks that really run are the ones set by your own regulator: the central bank for financial firms, and the separate data protection offices in the two financial districts. The national cyber incident reporting service is aimed at government bodies, not at private companies.Medium confidence	Count three clocks. Privacy breach: tell the Commissioner without delay and at the latest within 72 hours, and if you miss that you must explain why. Cyber incident: if you run an information system the state has classed as important, you have only 24 hours to report it. Then a third clock starts — updates every 24 hours for a serious incident, every three days for a middling one, and a final report within 15 days of the incident ending. Banks report cyber incidents to the central bank instead, promptly, with no fixed hour count.High confidence
What's the trap?	Five things that cost people their weekend. One: the national privacy law does not cover health data, banking data, government data, or companies in the financial free zones, so most regulated firms are not governed by it at all. Two: health data may not leave the country, ever, and the fine is up to about 190 thousand dollars. Three: since April 2026 the national identity-check report may not be sent abroad. Four: a child is anyone under 18, but the parental consent line is drawn at 13. Five: there are two extra legal systems inside the country, and their regulators actually issue penalties.High confidence	Five. (1) A child can consent for themselves at 15, not 13 or 16 — plan your age gates around 15. (2) A foreign court order or foreign tax authority demand for data is recognised in Serbia only if a treaty backs it, so handing data to an overseas authority on request can itself be unlawful. (3) Individuals, not just companies, can be prosecuted; the regulator has filed 49 criminal complaints since 2010. (4) Dozens of older Serbian laws still contradict the privacy law and were never fixed. (5) The government's official list of safe destination countries has not been touched since 2019 and still names a United States framework that died in 2020.High confidence
What's about to change?	The single biggest thing is a rule that could appear on any Tuesday. When the government finally publishes the detailed rules under the privacy law, every company gets six months to comply and the law switches from decorative to real. Nothing signals when that will happen. In the meantime the new child safety law needs its penalty schedule, and the national identity-check platform is being rolled out across banks.Medium confidence	One dated change and several unscheduled ones. From 1 January 2027 the ministry formally takes over supervising the new Office for Information Security, which should mean the office is actually up and running by then. A rewrite of the privacy law is being drafted by a special working group covering video surveillance, biometrics, genetic data and artificial intelligence, and a separate group is drafting an artificial intelligence law. Neither has been published as a bill, so neither is binding.High confidence
Hardest industry wall	Health and social care — Federal Law No. (2) of 2019 Concerning the Use of the Information and Communications Technology in Health Fields Payments — Retail Payment Services and Card Schemes Regulation Insurance — Insurance Authority Board of Directors' Resolution No. (18) of 2020 Concerning the Electronic Insurance Regulations Banking — Cabinet Resolution No. (55) of 2026 Promulgating the Executive Regulations of Federal Decree-Law No. (30) of 2024 Regarding the "Know Your Customer" Digital Platform	Online gaming — Pravilnik o informaciono-komunikacionom sistemu za priređivanje posebnih igara na sreću preko sredstava elektronske komunikacije