Consent and Privacy Law When Filming in Dubai

The three permissions are worth separating before anything else, because most productions hold one and assume all three. The permit says you may be in the location. It says nothing about the people who happen to be there. The rights clause says who owns the film afterwards, which is a third question again, and the Journal covers both of those elsewhere.

This article is about the middle one, and it is the one with criminal exposure attached.

The UAE law firm BSA Law, writing on Federal Decree-Law No. 34 of 2021 on Countering Rumours and Cybercrimes, describes Article 44 as reaching the taking of photographs of others in any public or private place, and states that no blanket public-place exception exists. That is the sentence that breaks the imported instinct, and it is worth reading twice before a crew is briefed.

Two findings run in opposite directions here, and both belong in a producer's head at the same time.

On exposure, the law firms describe a basic violation carrying imprisonment of not less than six months and a fine between AED 150,000 and AED 500,000. Where images have been altered, the reported band rises to imprisonment of not less than one year and a fine between AED 250,000 and AED 500,000.

On liability, the UAE firm Al Suwaidi reports a judgment holding that criminal liability under Article 44 requires both the prohibited act and criminal intent, and that the absence of intent to violate privacy or misuse an image defeats prosecution even where the photographing occurred. The facts matter to how far that travels. The accused had photographed someone engaged in potentially unlawful conduct, had not shared or circulated the image, and had retained it solely to document suspected wrongdoing. BSA makes the same point from the other side, that malicious intent is negated where a person believes they are fulfilling a legal duty such as reporting a crime.

Neither firm identifies an exemption for professional photographers or production companies.

The honest reading sits between the two. Intent is a real element, and it is why an ordinary commercial shoot with a legitimate purpose is not what this provision is aimed at. It is also not a plan. A production that expects to argue about intent has already found itself in the argument it should have avoided, and by then the shoot is finished, the client is waiting, and the answer costs money either way.

Some of the people in front of a camera sit inside a further regime, and each has its own rules.

In a DHA-licensed facility, written consent must be obtained and documented from any individual whose pictures, images, videos or statements are used, and that consent is limited to the subject it was requested for and the period it was granted for. The facility is also liable for all content filmed within its premises, however it was captured, which extends the problem to staff and visitors as well as patients. The Journal covers the clinic position in its own articles.

Performers are different again. Where a performer agrees to the audiovisual fixation of their performance, the exclusive economic rights to license that fixed performance transfer to the producer unless otherwise agreed in writing, while performers' moral rights remain perpetual and unassignable. That sits in the copyright decree-law and the Journal covers it separately.

Which produces the synthesis worth carrying: a single person on camera can sit inside three regimes at once, privacy, data protection and performers' rights. One release, drafted properly, does the work of all three. A verbal nod on a busy set does none of it.

Decide the consent position at the recce rather than on the day. The recce is where a location either can be controlled or cannot, and that is a scheduling decision as much as a legal one.

Give it an owner. Consent works when the first assistant and the location manager hold it, not when the producer remembers it at lunch. Releases travel in the same folder as the call sheet, because a form nobody can find is a form nobody uses.

Aerial work deserves its own line, because a drone changes what is in frame without anyone on the ground noticing. A camera at altitude sees balconies, private terraces, pool decks and neighbouring buildings that no location agreement covers and no release was ever collected for. The aerial permit answers the airspace question and nothing else. The framing question stays with the production, and the answer is usually a tighter flight path, a different time of day, or an orbit that keeps the neighbours out of the shot rather than a discussion afterwards about whether anyone was identifiable.

Grolez Films plans consent as a production department rather than as a form signed at the end. Cleared spaces where the treatment allows, controlled frames where it does not, releases captured on the day with the scope written on them, a blur pass in the post schedule, and an archive that stays with the footage rather than in somebody's inbox.

The alternative is familiar enough. A crew that treats consent as paperwork for later spends the edit chasing signatures, or spends the night before a launch blurring faces. The film usually survives that. The launch date sometimes does not.

We plan the consent position at the recce, choose locations that can be controlled, brief the frame as carefully as the schedule, capture releases on the day with their scope written on them, and budget the blur pass before anyone needs it.

Luis Grolez, the founder, pitches this personally, founder to founder. Get in touch about a specific brief and a specific quarter.