Ooredoo Q.P.S.C.
Headquartered in Qatar and majority-owned by the Qatari government, Ooredoo provides telecommunications services such as mobile, broadband, and fiber in 9 countries in the Middle East, North Africa, and southeast Asia. In the fourth quarter of 2025, it had 147.1 million users.
Although Ooredoo remained at the bottom of the ranking, it achieved a milestone this year as its overall score increased by over four points and moved into double digits for the first time. This gain is primarily attributed to significant progress made by the company in the governance category.
Following closely behind e&, another Gulf-based telecommunications operator, Ooredoo posted the second-largest improvement in governance performance, with its score in this area rising by more than 14 points[1]. Since 2022, Ooredoo has introduced ethical AI principles, established a top-down governance structure to oversee human rights issues, and launched a security vulnerability reporting program. However, major transparency gaps persisted in key areas, such as freedom of expression.
The company operates across complex geopolitical and human rights environments. Ooredoo Palestine is one of the two telecommunication companies operating in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. During Israel’s invasion of Gaza, Ooredoo’s infrastructures in the region were impacted severely, which caused multiple communication blackouts. With the ease of the situation, in January 2026, Israel approved Ooredoo and another mobile operator to upgrade the mobile network to 4G services for Palestinians in the West Bank. However, only 2G networks are available in the Gaza Strip so far.
In recent years, internet shutdowns recurred in some of its markets, highlighting the challenges of balancing service delivery with digital rights and compliance obligations. Moreover, internet censorship is still a significant issue in Qatar. Authorities have blocked access to Roblox, an online gaming platform since August 2025. As an internet service provider, Ooredoo did not disclose how it responds to government requests for internet content restrictions, nor did it provide data on its content filtering practices.
Human rights risks continued to be a source of investor concerns for Ooredoo. In January 2024, Norway’s KLP pension fund divested from Ooredoo, citing concerns over human rights and the energy transition following NGO consultations and human rights assessments.
The 2026 RDR Index: Telco Giants Edition covers policies that were active on August 31, 2025. Policies that came into effect after August 31, 2025 were not evaluated for this ranking.
Scores reflect the average score across the services we evaluated, with each service weighted equally.
We rank companies on their governance, and on their policies and practices affecting freedom of expression and privacy.
Ooredoo made the most improvements in its governance category, increasing its score by over 14 points. While it remained in last place in this area, it has, for the first time, outlined the ethical framework underpinning its use of artificial intelligence (G1) and clarified in its 2024 ESG Report that responsibility for privacy governance rests with both the board and senior management (G2). The company also indicated that privacy awareness is reinforced through ongoing training programs for employees (G3). While Ooredoo conducted risk assessments associated with human rights, no evidence showed that freedom of expression or privacy issues were included in the due diligence process (G4a).
Ooredoo scored slightly higher on freedom of expression this year than in the previous ranking, after making it easier for customers to access the privacy policy applicable to its fixed-line broadband services (F1a). It also disclosed that individuals using prepaid services must submit identification as part of the subscription process (F11). However, Ooredoo continued to trail behind, performing only slightly better than Airtel. The company still disclosed very limited information on network shutdowns (F10). It remained silent about content, account, or advertisement restrictions (F4a, F4b, F4c), nor did it share any information related to third-party requests to block content (F5a, F5b, F6, F7).
Ooredoo made some improvements on its privacy disclosures, particularly regarding the bug bounty program for security researchers to report identified system vulnerabilities and has pledged not to take legal action against those who follow the company’s established disclosure procedures (P14). Despite this progress, it continued to rank last in this category due to the limited transparency on its privacy practices. In particular, it provided very limited information on the measures it takes to address data breaches (P15). The company offered insufficient details about how user data is managed: it failed to reveal the types of data it infers (P3b), the extent to which information is collected from third parties (P9), how long it retains user data (P6), or whether users are given any means to access or control their personal information (P7, P8).
[1] This adjusted score reflects changes in company performance after excluding the effects of reassessments, corrections, and updates to research guidance, and is intended to capture only policy-related developments.