Global AI lawNo AI-specific law — data-protection law binds

AI Laws in Qatar

Qatar has no AI statute, and that is a measurement rather than a summary: Al Meezan — the Ministry of Justice's register of everything enacted since 1961 — returns exactly ONE instrument for الذكاء الاصطناعي, and it is Council of Ministers Decision No. 10 of 2021, which establishes an Artificial Intelligence Committee inside the Ministry of Transport and Communications. Its eleven articles are institutional throughout — membership, three-year terms, monthly meetings, quarterly reporting to the Minister, and a remit under Article 3 to implement and monitor Qatar's National AI Strategy. It creates no obligation on anyone deploying an AI system and contains no penalty provision of any kind (verified against the full text: no عقوبة, غرامة, يعاقب, حبس or ريال anywhere in it, and its single prohibition in Article 8 is a confidentiality duty on the committee's own members). What actually binds a business using AI in Qatar is Law No. 13 of 2016 on the Protection of Personal Data Privacy — the first comprehensive data-protection law in the GCC, in force since 3 November 2016 and administered by the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology — together with Decree-Law No. 16 of 2010 on Electronic Commerce and Transactions. The PDPPL requires a lawful basis and prior consent for processing, imposes duties of transparency, purpose limitation, accuracy and security, gives individuals rights of access, correction, erasure and objection, requires prior permission from the competent department before processing data of special nature (health, ethnicity, religion, criminal records, children), and requires prior consent before sending electronic direct-marketing communications.