His Majesty issued yesterday a new law called the National Records Law that requires all government entities, government-owned companies, and certain private companies to directly integrate with Royal Oman Police to store the data that ROP deems required to maintain a newly created national records database. If an entity is not able to directly integrate with ROP to electronically provide the data that ROP requests, the entity is required to provide the data to ROP using traditional means. In both cases, it is not permitted to require ROP to pay any fees for the cost of integration or transfer of the requested data.
The new National Records Law creates a digital database for national records hosted in a new centre called the National Records Centre based in Royal Oman Polic that is given the power to demand that any (1) government entity, (2) government-owned company with 40% government shareholding or more, or (3) private company given a concession or a licence to exploit a natural resource or a manage public utility integrates with ROP to provide its data directly electronically or to supply the data required by ROP using a traditional form.
The law requires entities falling within its mandate to provide ROP with details of all the data they produce or possess, notify ROP of any change they make in their systems, and assign a focal point responsible for ensuring the proper implementation of the law.
The law appears to suggest that government entities will have the ability to integrate with the national records database to use the data of this database in the delivery of their own public services. Article 13 of the law provides an illustrative list of the cases in which ROP can refuse requests from government entities to pull data from the database.
This new legislation is an actual law promulgated by royal decree, not a policy, a circular, or even a regulation. However, failure to comply with the law is punishable by a fine up to 500 Rials only.
In essence, this law creates a base registry for government information that government entities should use to deliver their services. If this law actually works, a government entity would not have to request a user of any of its services to provide a piece of information that is already in the possession of another government entity. The justification for giving this mandate to ROP and not another entity is probably the fact that ROP is the de facto owner of the current national base registry, which is the civil status database that has all the details of national identity cards, residence cards, and passports.
However, this database goes beyond being merely a base registry for the personal information of individuals, as the law requires government-owned companies and private companies with concessions and public utility licences to also integrate with ROP, suggesting that the database might be used to collect all information collected by these entities. This puts into question the role of the National Centre for Statistics and Information as well as the role of the National Records and Archives Authority into question, especially since this law does not clarify their relationships with the new database, which is peculiar given that both of these entities also have a somewhat similar scope to demand records and data from government entities, government-owned companies, and certain private companies.
The new National Records Law enters into force next week. You can read it in full in English on the link below: