Does the Qatar PDPPL apply to companies in the Qatar Financial Centre?

No. Companies incorporated or registered in the Qatar Financial Centre (QFC) fall outside the PDPPL and follow the QFC Data Protection Regulations 2021, a separate regime that came into force in June 2022 and replaced the QFC’s 2005 rules. Every other business processing personal data in Qatar follows the PDPPL.

So the first question for a website in Qatar is where the company is registered. Either way, a website that runs advertising or analytics tools needs to ask its visitors before those tools load.