Digital wayfinding in the UAE, Arabic first.
DigiMaps is digital wayfinding software for UAE malls, hospitals and government buildings. One map runs in Arabic and English on kiosks, phones and signage, in our cloud or on a server on your own network. Your legal and security teams can review our control mapping against UAE PDPL, Dubai ISR and the Dubai Universal Design Code.
- 1 Kiosk at the main entrance أنت هنا
- 2 Escalators to Level 2 السلالم المتحركة
- 3 Food court, Level 2: 48 m, about 1 minute ساحة الطعام
Wayvale Mall is a fictional venue. The same map switches to English with one tap.
A control mapping your lawyers can mark up.
UAE public-sector and hospital buyers ask how a wayfinding system sits against local law. We wrote that down: a mapping of DigiMaps controls against four UAE frameworks, with a DPIA template. It is evidence for your review, not a certificate, and the document says so itself.
DOC · UAE-MAP · working template
UAE privacy, security and accessibility control mapping
Not legal advice. Not an attestation. Includes a DPIA template.
Every row requires your legal or compliance sign-off
UAE PDPL
Federal Decree-Law 45/2021
Personal data of visitors and staff
- Visitors are anonymous; kiosks have no sign-in and no personal-data forms
- E-mails, phone numbers and Emirates-ID-format numbers typed into search are scrubbed, in Latin and Arabic digits
- Groups smaller than five hidden in statistics; analytics kept 395 days by default
Sign-off: pending, yours
UAE ICT Health Law
Federal Law 2/2019
Health information handled in ICT systems
- On-premises server keeps every record on your site and its backups
- Hospital pack removes staff-only and clinical rooms from public screens
- Typed search text is dropped before storage on hospital venues
Sign-off: pending, yours
Dubai ISR
Information Security Regulation
Information security controls
- SSO via SAML 2.0 and OpenID Connect; six roles with per-venue access; append-only audit log
- Threat model; static analysis, dependency and secret scanning, scheduled OWASP ZAP API scans
Sign-off: pending, yours
Dubai Universal Design Code
Accessible buildings and wayfinding
- Six routing profiles with a hard step-free rule; kiosk reach mode
- 7:1 contrast, text never below 20 px, touch targets at least 56 px
- Designed to support WCAG 2.1 AA; no third-party audit yet
Sign-off: pending, yours
Our security evidence and privacy facts page covers the engineering behind each row, and what we cannot show you yet.
Decide where the data lives before you decide anything else.
Choose on-premises to keep every byte on your own server, or a cloud region agreed in your contract. Nothing in our cloud pins a region by itself, which is why it belongs in the contract. On the server, DigiMaps runs with no internet connection: no outbound calls by default, offline updates.
Cloud, hosted by us
We run the servers. Kiosks, signage players, phones and staff browsers connect over HTTPS.
- Tenancy
- Shared platform, each organisation in its own account
- Connection
- HTTPS from every screen and browser
- Data location
- The region agreed in your contract
- If the internet drops
- Kiosks keep searching and routing from their cached map, then catch up
- Good fit
- One venue or a portfolio, with no server of your own to run
Dedicated cloud
A separate instance for one organisation, running the same software as the shared cloud.
- Tenancy
- Single tenant: only your organisation on the instance
- Connection
- HTTPS from every screen and browser
- Data location
- The region agreed in your contract
- If the internet drops
- Kiosks keep searching and routing from their cached map, then catch up
- Good fit
- Groups whose IT policy rules out shared hosting
On-premises server
One machine on your LAN runs the API, database, Studio and Wayfinder. Your data stays on that server and its backups.
- Operating system
- Ubuntu 22.04 or 24.04, or Windows 11 (22H2 or later) or Windows Server 2025 via WSL2
- Small site
- 16 GB RAM and 4 CPU cores. Medium and large profiles for bigger sites
- TLS
- Your own certificates, or a built-in internal certificate authority
- Network
- Firewalled to your kiosk and admin subnets
- Backups
- Nightly and encrypted, with a second copy and a verified restore
- Upgrades
- Health check after each upgrade, automatic rollback if it fails
- Air-gapped option
- No outbound calls by default, an offline update bundle, AI features off by default
- Good fit
- Hospitals, government buildings and sites with no internet connection
Same Studio, same Wayfinder, same API in every option.
Arabic first, including in an emergency.
When a kiosk is set to Arabic, everything leads in Arabic: the dock, the search, the steps, and the emergency takeover, which shows every venue language at once. Your team writes and approves each Arabic name in Studio.
- Layout
- Full right to left, with an Arabic map font bundled
- Search
- Ignores hamza forms, taa marbuta, tatweel and harakat; reads Arabic-Indic digits
- Directions
- Landmarks named in Arabic, never the Latin label from the CAD file
- Emergency
- One action takes over every screen, in Arabic and English, with a route to the nearest reachable exit
Emergency mode and nearest-exit guidance supplement, never replace, your approved signage and procedures. Exit routes need your approved exit data.
How Arabic and English work in DigiMapsWho builds it, who installs it.
DigiSigns has an Arabic website for the region but no UAE office, and we will not pretend otherwise. Screens, cabling and site visits come from a local integrator; the software, setup and training come from our team in New Delhi.
- Your integrator supplies and installs the kiosks, signage players and network.
- We set up your venue in Studio, bring in your floor plans and configure each kiosk from Studio.
- Your team learns to post closures, notices and translations without calling anyone.
- Support by e-mail during the hours shown here, with kiosk offline alerts going straight to your own team.
Integrators in the UAE can read about the partner programme for signage integrators.
New Delhi IST, UTC+5:30
Dubai and Abu Dhabi GST, UTC+4
Questions from UAE buyers
Do you have an office in Dubai or Abu Dhabi?
No. DigiSigns is based in New Delhi and runs an Arabic website for the region, but has no office or address in the UAE. Projects are delivered with a local integrator, and our team supports them remotely from 08:30 to 17:30 UAE time, Monday to Friday.
Is DigiMaps compliant with UAE PDPL?
We do not claim compliance or certification. We provide a control mapping against UAE PDPL, the UAE ICT Health Law, Dubai ISR and the Dubai Universal Design Code for your legal and information-security review. It is a working document, not legal advice, and every row needs your sign-off.
Can all our data stay in the UAE?
Choose on-premises to keep every byte on your own server, or a cloud region agreed in your contract. Nothing in our cloud pins a region by itself, so the region is written into the contract. The on-premises server makes no outbound calls by default.
What happens if a visitor types an Emirates ID number into search?
It is replaced with a placeholder before anything is stored, on the kiosk and again on the server, whether it is typed in Latin or Arabic digits. Phone numbers and e-mail addresses are treated the same way. Hospital and government venues do not store typed search text at all.
Do you cover ADHICS for Abu Dhabi health entities?
No. The written mapping covers UAE PDPL, the UAE ICT Health Law, Dubai ISR and the Dubai Universal Design Code. If your hospital works to ADHICS, send us your requirement list and we will answer it line by line, starting from the on-premises server and the hospital privacy controls.
Can the kiosks also run our signage content?
Yes. An idle kiosk plays a scheduled signage playlist with proof of play, and live notices take priority over it. If you already run a signage system, DigiMaps can feed it notices and events as RSS, JSON Feed or iCalendar.
Walk through your UAE venue with us
Book a 30-minute call between 08:30 and 17:30 UAE time. We show the demo venue in Arabic and English, look at your floor plan with you, and talk plainly about hosting, the control mapping and who would install it.