Reputation Management for Indians in the UAE: Indian Sources, UAE Law

Most matters involve more than one place. A story on an Indian portal is shared on Facebook, quoted in a WhatsApp forward and found on Google by a client in Dubai. Each copy has its own owner and its own route, so the work starts with a list of every URL and where it sits.

Where the problem is personal information rather than a story, the guide to the right to be forgotten in the UAE sets out the erasure rights and Google's own policies.

Unified Chambers And Associates is a firm of advocates in Delhi and RepuLex's legal-services partner. The regulated legal acts in India are the firm's: a legal notice under an advocate's signature to the publisher, platform or poster, and where needed an application to the competent Indian court. RepuLex is the agency that coordinates the matter and does the non-legal work around it.

The Indian route reaches content in India. It does not reach a UAE outlet or a UAE-based poster, and Unified Chambers cannot act in the UAE: it cannot file a complaint with the UAE police or the Public Prosecution, or appear in a UAE court. Where a matter has both an Indian and a UAE part, the two run side by side, the Indian part through the partner law firm and the UAE part through UAE counsel you instruct.

You do not need to travel to India for the work to start. Where a step in India needs a document signed by you, the partner law firm tells you which one and how it can be signed and sent from the UAE.

What the Indian route can achieve depends on the content and the publisher. An outlet may correct, update or take down an article when shown a legal basis, and a platform may remove content under its policies or on an order. Neither outcome can be promised in advance: the removal audit says, for each URL, which route applies and what it can realistically achieve.

An Indian news article is a common starting point. A report of an old dispute, an arrest that ended without a conviction, or a family matter can follow a name for years, because it is what a search returns. Editors typically consider an update with a later outcome, or the removal of a private person's name, more readily than a full deletion, so the request usually starts there, backed by the document that proves the later outcome.

If the publisher declines and the article is false or otherwise unlawful under Indian law, the partner law firm takes up the legal route. Once the publisher deletes the page, Google's "Refresh outdated content" tool asks Google to update the result. Removal from Google Search alone does not remove the article from the internet: the page stays on the site until the publisher takes it down. The guide to removing a news article about you sets out every route in detail.

A forward moves between private groups, so there is no single page to take down. A message can be deleted from a chat, but copies already saved or forwarded stay on the phones that received them, and no one can recall them. What can be done is narrower, and it still matters:

Many professionals and business owners in the UAE also have a practice, a family business or a property in India, and reviews about it sit on Indian review, listing and map sites. RepuLex does not take on honest reviews of a genuine experience. The work covers reviews that make false statements of fact, come from accounts that were never customers, or expose private information.

Each site decides under its own policies first. Where a review is defamatory under Indian law and the site does not act, the partner law firm can send a legal notice to the site or the reviewer and, where needed, seek an order from the competent Indian court.

Reviews of a business in the UAE are a different matter, and UAE law reaches the reviewer as well as the business: see the guide to negative Google reviews and UAE law.

A criminal action for the offences that Article 11 of the Criminal Procedures Law, Federal Decree-Law No. 38 of 2022, lists as "insult and slander of people" needs a complaint by the victim, or by their representative or an attorney under a special power of attorney, filed with the Public Prosecution or a judicial police officer (Articles 11 and 12). Take advice within three months of learning of the post and who made it: Article 11 says the complaint is not admitted after three months from when the victim becomes aware of the crime and its perpetrator. We have not found a primary text settling whether that limit also governs the online offence in Article 43 of the Cybercrime Decree-Law, so treat three months as the working deadline.

Cybercrime can be reported through the Dubai Police e-crime service, Abu Dhabi Police Aman (8002626, or the Aman website), the Ministry of Interior eCrimes platform in the MOI UAE app, the My Safe Society app of the UAE Federal Public Prosecution, or the nearest police station, and 999 is the number in an emergency. The guide on how to report cyber crime in the UAE covers each channel, and how to file a defamation case in Dubai covers the complaint itself. For the courts and police in each emirate, see the pages on Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

UAE courts and the Public Prosecution admit a lawyer's representation only if the lawyer is recorded in the Roll of Practicing Lawyers kept with the Ministry (Article 6(2) of Federal Decree-Law No. 34 of 2022 Regulating the Legal Profession and Legal Consultation Profession). Being a national citizen is the first condition for entry on the Roll (Article 13(1)), and criminal proceedings are closed to licensed non-national lawyers (Article 10), subject only to case-by-case temporary permission for lawyers of other states (Article 80(1)(d)). An Indian advocate or a foreign agency cannot itself file or argue a UAE onshore court or prosecution matter, and RepuLex does not. The onshore courts sit in Arabic, with a sworn interpreter for non-Arabic speakers (Article 5(1) of the Civil Procedure Code, Federal Decree-Law No. 42 of 2022).

UAE law can reach a post made from India. Article 69 of the Cybercrime Decree-Law applies the Decree-Law to offences committed outside the UAE where, among other cases, the crime harms any UAE national or resident, or the offender is later found in the UAE and has not been extradited. Whether a complaint is practical against someone in India is for your UAE lawyer; the Indian legal route against the same person runs separately, through the partner law firm.

Three UAE rules surprise people used to the position in India. Unlike India, where a true statement made for the public good is a defence, Article 428 of the Penal Code, Federal Decree-Law No. 31 of 2021, lets the person who made an allegation prove it only where it concerns a public servant or a person entrusted with a public service and is connected with the job or service, and not if more than five years have passed since the incident. Article 431 punishes publishing news, photos or comments related to the private or family life secrets of individuals "even if they are true". And Article 427 punishes an insult by telephone, or one made directly to the person in the presence of others, with incarceration not exceeding 6 months or a fine not exceeding AED 5,000, and an insult with no one else present, or in a letter sent by any means, with a fine not exceeding AED 5,000.

These rules shape how the work is done. A reply that insults the poster, or a post that exposes their private life to set the record straight, can engage UAE law even when you are the person wronged. Family and matrimonial disputes are a common setting: a post about the other family, true or not, can be unlawful in the UAE. Keep every message factual, leave legal demands to a lawyer, and do not publish the other side's private details. Article 42 of the Cybercrime Decree-Law punishes using an information network or IT equipment to threaten another person to force them to act or to refrain from acting.

The guide on why truth is not a defence in the UAE works through Article 428 and the privacy provisions, and the guide to defamation in UAE law sets out each offence and its penalty.

Gather these before anyone contacts the other side:

The table shows how each typical matter is usually approached. For fake profiles, see the guide to fake accounts in your name. For threats to publish images, the guide to online blackmail in the UAE puts the police first.

Cross-border matters are where an agency's claims are hardest to check. Five questions sort them:

RepuLex answers the five questions on its own pages. Its partner law firm in India is Unified Chambers And Associates. It holds no UAE licence, has no office in the Emirates and works alongside the UAE counsel you instruct. It works on published fixed fees per URL, paid in advance and refunded in full for any URL not removed within its agreed timeline, provided you supply the documents and authority requested for that URL, including the written consent of a family member where you instruct on their behalf. It does not promise outcomes. See what RepuLex is, and online reputation management in the UAE for how the work is organised across the Emirates.

The work itself is this: