News | Ministry of Transport

Sunday, January 31, 2021

MOTC Releases Guidelines on Personal Data Privacy Protection Law

Doha – QatarMarking the Data Privacy Day, Compliance and Data Protection Department at the Ministry of Transport and Communications has announced the release of the guidelines of the Personal Data Privacy Protection Law No. 13 of 2016 to help the target audience; individuals, regulated entities and stakeholders, understand their respective responsibilities, rights and practices as per the said law.On this occasion, Acting Assistant Undersecretary of Cyber Security Affairs, MOTC, Mr. Othman Salem Al-Hamoud, said, “In the context of MOTC’s commitment to overseeing the implementation of the Personal Data Privacy Protection Law, we are pleased to announce the release of the guidelines of the Personal Data Privacy Protection Law No. 13 of 2016, which provide a set of guidelines, controls, assistive tools, checklists and templates for regulated entities addressed by the provisions of the law to support compliance to the law. They also include guidance for individuals to become more aware of their rights and responsibilities as per the law.”He stressed the necessity for regulated entities to refer to these guidelines and reposition according to their individual role either as data processor or data controller, without prejudice to the provisions of the law and, thereby, avoiding liability.Director of Compliance and Data Protection Dep., MOTC, Eng. Dana Al-Abdulla, called upon the regulated entities addressed by the provisions of the law to strike a balance between ensuring the protection of personal data privacy and their right to technological advancement and the use of techniques and data to achieve individuals’ rights.She pointed out to the importance to take into consideration the fundamental personal data processing principles provided for by law: transparency, honesty, respect of human dignity, data minimization, accuracy, storage limitation, integrity and confidentiality, purpose limitation and accountability. She said that her department explained these principles and how to put them into practice, in the released guidelines released.Eng. Al-Abdulla advised regulated entities to take into consideration the methods they control and/or process the personal data and be responsible for that. She also confirmed the importance of adopting a methodology based on risk analysis, as per privacy principles, and putting such principles in the heart of the approach of processing and controlling the personal data.Personal data privacy is concerned with the use of individuals’ personal data in technological systems – a field that combines technology and respect of individual’s privacy within a regulatory, law framework that regulates the relation between the individual and the entity that collects and uses their data.A data controller is a natural or legal person who, whether acting individually or jointly with others, determines how Personal Data may be processed and determines the purpose(s) of any such processing Personal Data Processing.A data processor is a natural or legal person who processes Personal Data for the controller. Personal Data Processing is when personal data is processed through one operation or more such as gathering, receipt, registration, organization, storage, preparation, modification, retrieval, usage, disclosure, publication, transfer, withholding, destruction, erasure and cancellation.According to Article 8 of the Law, the “Controller shall abide by the controls related to designing, changing or developing products, systems and services pertinent to Personal Data Processing and shall take appropriate administrative, technical and financial precautions to protect Personal Data, in accordance with what is determined by the Competent Department”, and this has been explained by the Compliance and Data Protection Dept. in the guidelines.Moreover, the department provided several assistive tools for the audience the law addresses to help them reposition in line with the provisions of the law. Such tools include but are not limited to “Record of Processing Activities” (RoPA), “Personal Data Management System” (PDMS) and “Data Protection Impact Assessment” (DPIA).Eng. Al-Abdulla said that within the Compliance and Data Protection Dept.’s commitment to contacting those who are concerned with the law and raising awareness of the guidelines, the department will organize workshops and panel discussions for all sectors, Arabic and English awareness forums for individuals and publish awareness messages on MOTC’s social media accounts.The guidelines are available at compliance.qcert.org. Compliance and Data Protection Dept. can be reached at cdp-privacy@motc.gov.qa or 44069991 or via its websites.

Wednesday, January 20, 2021

Digital Incubation Center Incubates 25 New Startups, Celebrates the Graduation of 17 Startups

Doha – QatarThe Digital Incubation Center of the Ministry of Transport and Communications (MOTC) has announced the 25 winners of the fourth edition of IdeaCamp, which was held virtually for the first time, in line with the precautionary measures for COVID19. The announcement was made at a virtual ceremony attended by HE Reem Mohamed Al Mansouri, Assistant Undersecretary of Digital Society Development Sector at MOTC. The ceremony was also organized to celebrate the graduation of 17 startups that completed their incubation in 2020.The announcement of the 25 IdeaCamp winners comes after a round of pitching by 40 shortlisted startups in front of a distinguished jury panel that included experts in the field from Ooredoo, Qatar Development Bank, Tasmu Smart Qatar, QRDI, Bedaya Center and AppLab.The winning startups for the fourth edition of IdeaCamp are: eHaris, Spendwisor, PayWise, NARR, PickUp, Tailory, Short-term load forecasting, ElevateMe, Endrogn, Turismo, Farha, VastumLab, ValApp, BizPlanner, Ceena Lab, Karty, Tahado, Qreceipt, Storimart, Keyrism, Info-Tech Hive, Aljadwal, Telerehab, Traff-Easy, and Almachla.The winner's ideas harness emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, advanced analytics and the Internet of things to serve the sectors of education, health care, sports tourism, agriculture, environment and transportation.On this occasion, Her Excellency Reem Al Mansoori, MOTC’s Assistant Undersecretary for Digital Society Development Affairs, said: "The Digital Society sector has an integrated strategic vision that aims to support digital innovations that harness emerging technologies and create a fostering environment for them to continue their success in the Qatari market."Duha Ali Al-Buhendi, Digital Incubation Center Acting Manager, said: “DIC is committed to providing support to digital entrepreneurs in Qatar. We are proud of the success of the virtual edition of IdeaCamp and our incubation of 25 new digital startups, which brings the total number of incubated startups to 57. Our incubated entrepreneurs benefit from operational and technical support, working office spaces, as well as regular training and mentorship sessions to accelerate the growth of their enterprises. "In order to ensure that entrepreneurs have easy access to DIC and get answers to their pressing questions about IdeaCamp, the Digital Incubation Center organized 9 orientation sessions before the start of IdeaCamp, through which entrepreneurs were encouraged to register for IdeaCamp.A total of 150 ideas were selected. The entrepreneurs behind these ideas have met DIC’s criteria to attend IdeasCamp training workshops, over the course of 6 weeks with over 33 training hours and mentoring sessions for entrepreneurs to build and integrate their business models.The virtual ceremony also celebrated the graduation of 17 startups that have completed their incubation period at DIC in 2020, which brings the total of graduated startups to 100, these startups are Raeyi, Baqaala, Tomoh, Qertas, Saakin, EButler, PMOBytes, Bonocle, Spas Go, Medline Arabia, Xpander, ESmart Academy, Greenhat, Skilancer Solar Solar, NewsAmp, The Real Estate CRM and Artist Qatar.The Digital Incubation Center was established in line with the Ministry of Transport and Communications’ vision to create a supportive ecosystem for the digital startup sector in Qatar. Since 2011, 100 startups have successfully graduated from DIC, 18 of which have expanded internationally. Through partnerships with leading local and international institutions, the total investments in the incubated startups at the last 3 years has reached 23 million Qatari riyals.

Sunday, January 17, 2021

MOTC and Ooredoo Qatar Sign Agreement to Expand Government Data Centre

Doha, QatarThe Ministry of Transport and Communications (MoTC) and Ooredoo Qatar have signed an agreement to expand the Government Data Centre (GDC).The new GDC, also known as GDC2, will allow various government entities to host their mission-critical IT and network infrastructure in Ooredoo’s QDC5 purpose-built secure Tier III Data Centre facility in Qatar. Connected to the Government Network (GN), GDC2 provides hosting as well as basic and advanced monitoring services to hosted government entities. This will further enhance the ability of the public sector as a whole to acquire data centre capacity, without the need for additional capital expenditure.For Government entities, GDC2 brings multiple benefits. These include the flexibility to activate additional managed services quickly, high speed connectivity to the official Government Network, compliance with National Information Assurance standards, high availability hosting and 24/7 support, provided by a dedicated team of Ooredoo experts.GDC2 provides highly resilient carrier-grade facilities with enterprise-class power, space and security, operated by a team of skilled staff. Thanks to the innovative modular approach that Ooredoo Qatar has developed, Government entities with any size of operational footprint in Qatar can take full advantage of Ooredoo’s flexibility and adaptability while ensuring security, reliability and extensibility within a managed, on-demand service. GDC2 can be used as the primary Data Centre or as a Disaster Recovery site by Government organisations.On the occasion, MoTC’s Acting Assistant Undersecretary of Government Information Technology Affairs Ms. Mashael Ali Al-Hammadi said: “We are pleased to have signed this agreement with Ooredoo Qatar as part of MoTC’s keenness to extend the capabilities of the Government Data Centre by engaging with all service providers in Qatar to ensure resilience and high availability of the service as well as to enable all government entities and organisations to broaden their datacentres’ footprints without the need for investing in capex/opex logistics and to shorten the ‘time to service’ as much as possible.”Sheikh Nasser bin Hamad Al Thani – Chief Business Officer, Ooredoo - said: “This agreement provides further evidence of the emergence of Ooredoo as a trusted data centre service provider for government entities, giving them access to a host of cloud, infrastructure and managed services without incurring major capital expenditure. We’re proud to be chosen by the Ministry of Transport and Communications for such a crucial aspect of its operations, and look forward to working together.”

Wednesday, January 13, 2021

MOTC’s Gov. Infrastructure Operation Dept. Achieves ISO/IEC 270001:2013 for All Gov. Shared Services

Doha – QatarThe Government Infrastructure Operation Department of the Information Technology Affairs at the Ministry of Transport and Communications has obtained the ISO/IEC 270001:2013 Information Security Management System certificate.Information security is the protection of information to ensure confidentiality, integrity and availability. It is achieved by deploying a set of controls including in policies, processes, procedures, organizational structures, and software and hardware functions.The department achieved that important international standard for all the Government Shared Services that MOTC provides to government entities across Qatar.The ISO/IEC 270001:2013 is the international standard that is concerned with information security, where it ensures the adherence to strict security controls in accessing, storing, processing and reading encrypted and unencrypted data in IT environments and electronic services. It also guarantees secured procedures for the exchange of data between parties; either systems or individuals.In addition, the ISO/IEC 270001:2013 international standard focuses on disaster recovery and business continuity of electronic services, confirming the adopted recovery procedures based on world best practices. It also examines the change management in an IT environment to ensure well governance of applying changes securely on networks, applications, systems and even personnel. Moreover, the international standard focuses on risk management and how organizations should identify all types of risks and put plans to avoid them and/or mitigate them once occurred. It is also about capacity management for technical resources such as servers, storage, computing power. All these areas should be managed and governed following the ISO/IEC 270001:2013 security controls.“Obtaining this certificate is the culmination of the tireless work of the Government Infrastructure Operation Department’s team who didn’t stop at supporting all government entities to ensure their business continuity since COVID-19 began, but also prepared and completed all ISO/IEC 270001:2013 certificate requirements,” said MOTC’s Acting Assistant Undersecretary of Government Information Technology Ms. Mashael Ali Al-Hammadi, commenting on the achievement.“The team have gone through 4 rounds of technical and security-related assessment over the past few months, successfully passed them all and obtained the certificate with no observations from the certified assessment firm. We are proud to be one of the very first government entities in Qatar to have achieved that important international standard from the first time.”All Government Shared Services MOTC provides to several other government entities across Qatar have been found to conform to the Information Security Management System standard ISO/IEC 270001:2013.These services are: Government Network, which currently links over 116 government websites, Government Data Center, which hosts the IT infrastructure such as servers of more than 37 government entities, Government Contact Center, which provides technical support and answer people’s inquiries in 9 languages 24/7 covering up to 36 government entities such as the hotlines 109 for government services, 107 for Primary Health Care Corp., 16000 for health sector and 155 for education sector, “SMS Gateway”, which serves 44 government entities to send notifications to the public and the users, the National Authentication System “Tawtheeq”, which serves 23 government entities, the e-Payment Gateway, which is now used by 32 government entities to collect fees for their services on their own individual websites, Government e-Correspondence System, which provides all government entities with a secure and robust system for sending and receiving official correspondences and is now used by 80 government entities, the Government Data Exchange System, which enables a safe data exchange among entities and which more than 38 government entities now use and Tasdeeq.

Tuesday, January 12, 2021

Transport Engineering Conf. & Exhibition in April under MOTC Sponsorship

Doha-The Ministry of Transport and Communications yesterday hosted a press conference to announce that the Transport Engineering Conference & Exhibition will be organized by the Qatar Society of Engineers under the sponsorship of MOTC in cooperation with Expo Tale, the event management company, from 5 to 7 April 2021, at Sharq Village and Spa.MOTC was represented by Director of International Relations Department Mrs. Noor Ibrahim Shahdad, who also doubles as the Acting Director of Public Relations and Communication Department at the Ministry and the Qatar Society of Engineers was represented by the Chairman of the Society’s Board of Directors Eng. Khaled bin Ahmed Al-Nasr.Eng. Al-Nasr said that the Transport Engineering Conference & Exhibition is the first of its kind as it is characterized by its comprehensiveness in discussing the three recognized sectors of transportation (land, air and sea) and that the conference will also discuss the ability to use engineering standards and prepare appropriate designs, research and development and follow-up everything that is new in the transport engineering sector, and even offers alternatives to engineering solutions for road, rail, airport and port projects, as well as choosing the most appropriate technical and economic solution in an attempt to develop and update everything related to this sector.Eng. Al-Nasr emphasized that the conference promotes engineering principles in the fields of transportation engineering, including transportation, roads, building materials for roads, railroads, airports, and ports, the development of freight methods, customs clearance technology, traffic engineering and related systems, as well as collective transport planning. Traffic safety, advanced technologies, and the ability to apply these engineering principles and develop them and research knowledge related to informatics in addition to utilizing the computer software for engineering representation, designing, and planning roads and developing them, as well as the traffic control systems.Eng. Al-Nasr explained that contact has been made with the Gulf Engineering Union and the Federation of Arab Engineers, who expressed their admiration and desire to participate in this vital conference that contributes to the development of infrastructure, as the progress of countries is measured by the strength and quality of the infrastructure and transportation is a key element within the infrastructure system that all seek Countries to develop them and keep pace with all leading and developed countries in the field of transportation because of its importance in serving civil societyOn her side, Mrs. Shahdad said that the conference is organized based on the country’s adoption of technology developments and latest updates and the considerable attention it pays to providing everything that could further serve the people of Qatar, thus raising the country's name and profile on global map among major countries.Mrs. Shahdad emphasized the importance of scientific for a such as this one, especially as it tackles very important topics in the three aspects of transportation. She said that the conference will feature several speakers specialized in these areas who will present and discuss latest trends and updates in this industry.Mrs. Shahdad said that MOTC, with its various departments, will have a key role in this conference; presenting scientific papers and lectures to the concerned engineering sector. The Ministry, she added, works side by side with the Qatar Society of Engineers to organize and manage this conference during the coming period until the date of the event.Eng. Al-Nasr also indicated that the conference will be accompanied by a specialized exhibition, through which the government and private sectors can participate and will have the opportunity to display their engineering products and solutions, as well as everything new in this field.Eng. Al-Nasr explained that participation in the conference and exhibition as well as sponsorship opportunities are available to all through the official website of the association, where those wishing to participate can browse the website for all the details as well as submit a request to participate electronically via the website www.qatarse.org.Eng. Al-Nasr also indicated that the submitted session papers will be presented to the scientific committee that was formed in cooperation with Qatar University for approval to be part of the scientific papers program at the conference.At the end of the press conference, Eng. Al-Nasr explained that Expo Tale, a national event management company specialized in organizing and managing international events has been appointed to be in charge of managing and organizing the conference in cooperation with the Society and MOTC.Speakers at the press conference, Mrs. Shahdad and Eng. Al-Nasr thanked and appreciated the current sponsors of the conference, as well as those who confirmed their participation, whether through sponsorship, exhibiting, or presentation of scientific session papers.

Tuesday, January 12, 2021

MOTC Collecting Data to Develop Qatar Freight Master Plan

Doha – QatarThe Ministry of Transport and Communications is currently considering the Qatar Freight Master Plan, which is expected to be finalized by the end of 2022.MOTC is on the stage of collecting data and conducting relevant surveys and questionnaires. This effort includes collecting a wide range of freight-related information on origins, routes and destinations of freight movements, the flow rate of trucks at major junctions, as well as other qualitative and quantitative data on the performance of freight industry across Qatar in general.Field surveys are collecting data needed to develop the QFMP. Extensive data will be collected through traffic counts on roads, traffic counts on junctions using cameras, measuring trip duration on existing roads, classifying the vehicles including all types of trucks, and conducting surveys and questionnaires with employers and staff of construction, logistics, heavy and light transportation and freight services companies, as well as with harbours countrywide and Hamad International Airport.Based on this information, a traffic model that simulates the reality can be developed supported by an enhanced capability for understanding how variables are impacting freight activity till 2050, as well as the latest techniques deployed in freight and delivery industry.The QFMP aims to establish a modern infrastructure for freight industry across the country as part of an integrated transportation system in such a way that upgrades the culture and service of freight in Qatar to the best global standards and practices in terms of traffic safety and least possible environmental imprint.It will also contribute to economic and urban growth and an improved road freight for people and visitors of Qatar, thus meeting the Qatar National Vision 2030 objectives for sustainability, growing economic productivity, social equity and livable neighbourhoods.This project is developing plans for freight routes across the country, be them private or joint. The aim is to reduce freight traffic on road congestions. It is also preparing a freight route designing guidebook and setting systems and policies relating to freight, its modes and workhours on well-considered routes in such a way that meets the expectations of developers and freight companies in Qatar. Additionally, the project is establishing an electronic GIS and assistive smart applications to be used by all the concerned bodies in Qatar till 2050.Upon completing the stage of data collection and surveys, a specialized MOTC team will embark on an integrated and sustainable designing for all freight modes, develop a freight route designing guidebook and develop relevant policies for the miscellaneous freight networks and systems.