--- title: "Countly and Saudi Arabia’s PDPL: product analytics in the Kingdom" description: "Run Countly on infrastructure in Saudi Arabia, with consent per feature, data subject requests, minimization at the source and an audit trail for PDPL." url: https://countly.com/pdpl last_modified: 2026-11-11 --- PDPL # Saudi Arabia’s PDPL, answered by architecture The Personal Data Protection Law asks where personal data lives, why it is collected, who can reach it and how you answer the people it describes. Countly answers with the deployment itself: run it on infrastructure in the Kingdom, collect only what you decide, and handle consent and data requests on the server that holds the data. In this demo bank, a week of consent as the apps reported it: 1,142 opt-ins and 144 opt-outs, day by day, on the bank’s own server. What the law asks ## Six obligations, and where Countly meets them PDPL is enforced by SDAIA, the Saudi Data and AI Authority. These are the parts of it that product analytics touches, and the part of Countly that handles each. Data localization ### Keep personal data in the Kingdom PDPL limits transfers of personal data outside Saudi Arabia. Countly Enterprise runs on infrastructure you choose, your data center or a cloud region in the Kingdom, so analytics data never has to leave the country to be measured. - Self-hosted on your infrastructure - Air-gapped networks supported - No default vendor access - Reports computed where the data is Data subject rights ### Answer access and erasure requests A person can ask for a copy of their data, or for it to be destroyed. Compliance Hub exports one profile’s data in a single file or purges it, and records who ran each request and when. - Export profile data - Purge profile data - Export and purge history - Recorded in the audit log Consent ### Track only what people allowed Your app asks for consent, and the SDK reports each answer feature by feature. Turn on Require consent and every SDK of the project waits for a decision before it tracks anything. - Consent per feature - Require consent - Consent history per profile - Opt-in and opt-out counts Accountability ### Give your DPO the controls Whoever answers for personal data can see what each app collects, keep out what should not arrive, and show every change made to the setup, with who made it. - One schema per project - Personal data flagged on arrival - Audit log of every change - Exports as evidence Data minimization ### Collect only what the purpose needs Decide which events, properties and features are collected, and change it from the server without an app release. Personal properties can be masked, hashed or dropped before they are stored. - Event approval - Block events and properties - Turn off location tracking - Masking at ingestion Security ### Protect it, and limit who sees it Data is encrypted in transit and at rest. People sign in through your identity provider, and access is granted project by project and feature by feature. - TLS in transit - Encryption at rest - Single sign-on and two-factor - Per-feature permissions The features ## The parts of Countly that do the work Each one handles part of PDPL, on the same data and the same server as your analytics. [Read the PDPL guide](https://countly.com/blog/pdpl-compliance) Compliance Hub Consent per feature, with its history, and data export and purge requests with the record of each. Open [(Compliance Hub Consent per feature, with its history, and data export and purge](https://countly.com/feature/compliance-hub) Data Manager The schema every app is held to, with personal data flagged when it arrives where it shouldn’t. Open [(Data Manager The schema every app is held to, with personal data flagged when i](https://countly.com/feature/data-manager) SDK Manager Turn tracking features off, require consent and block events from the server, for every SDK at once. Open [(SDK Manager Turn tracking features off, require consent and block events from t](https://countly.com/feature/sdk-manager) Audit Logs Every change and every profile export or deletion, with the account, the time and the values before and after. Open [(Audit Logs Every change and every profile export or deletion, with the account,](https://countly.com/feature/audit-logs) Data ownership ## Where the data lives is your decision Under PDPL, the deployment answers the first question an auditor asks. Both editions are single-tenant, and Enterprise can run entirely inside the Kingdom. [Data privacy](https://countly.com/platform/data-privacy) Aspect Flex Enterprise Environment Dedicated single-tenant instance Your cloud, your data center or air-gapped Data residency The Google Cloud region you choose Wherever you deploy, including air-gapped networks Vendor access Operated by Countly; access limited, granted by you and logged No default access ISO 27001 Certified ISO 27017 Certified ISO 27018 Certified SOC 2 Type II examined TISAX® Participant* *Countly Ltd. is a TISAX® Participant. TISAX® is a registered trademark of and governed by ENX Association. Learn more at [enx.com/tisax](https://enx.com/tisax) **Does using Countly make us PDPL compliant?** No tool can do that on its own: compliance also depends on your purposes, notices, contracts and processes. Countly provides the technical parts: where the data is stored, what is collected, consent, data subject requests, access control and an audit trail. Your legal team decides how they fit your obligations. **Can Countly run entirely inside Saudi Arabia?** Yes, with [Countly Enterprise](https://countly.com/enterprise). It runs on infrastructure you operate, in your own data center or a cloud region in the Kingdom, including air-gapped networks, and Countly has no access unless you grant it. **Does the AI agent send data outside our servers?** It does not have to. When self-hosted, Cee’s product agents can run inside your infrastructure, configured with a self-hosted inference endpoint or your own AI provider. The Documentation Agent, the Countly AI Gateway (EU) and third-party AI providers run outside your infrastructure. **Do you sign a data processing agreement?** Yes. Each edition has its own data processing agreement and subprocessor list, on the [legal page](https://countly.com/legal).