Data protection laws have become increasingly relevant in today’s digital age, where businesses collect, store, and process large amounts of personally identifiable information. With India gradually emerging as a data-driven economy, the recent Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act 2023 aims to revolutionize data protection and privacy, keeping in mind the legitimate interests of businesses that leverage personal data for various purposes.
The Act ushers in a new era in India’s digital development journey that concerns almost 700 million Indians who are digitally connected today. But what will its impact be on businesses across various industries?
With the increased need for data protection and cybersecurity measures to fortify defence against cyberattacks and data breaches, the Act establishes standards for businesses to process and comply with the law. This blog brings you the Act’s key features and potential implications for businesses.
The 7 key features of India’s Data Protection Act
- Consent Management
Businesses must seek explicit user permission before collecting personal data to ensure transparency and user control. Users should be fully aware of what data is being collected, how it will be used, and the purpose for which it will be processed. Organizations must use the data legally, reasonably, and transparently for the individuals concerned.
- Application of the Act
Businesses based in India or operating from a foreign location – that process the personal data of Indian citizens to offer them goods or services – will come under the purview of India’s Data Protection Act. This ensures that Indian users’ data privacy is maintained during cross-border data processing.
- Data minimization and accurate collection
The Act required businesses to collect only as much personal data as necessary to serve the specified purpose. The collection can be done through online platforms, websites, mobile apps, electronic systems, physical records, or documents digitized later.
- Obligations of Data Fiduciaries
Data fiduciaries will be obligated to maintain the accuracy and completeness of data, keep data safe and secure, and delete data once its purpose has been met. The data storage should be limited to a fixed duration appropriate for its purpose.
- Fines and Penalties
The Act introduces significant penalties as high as Rs. 250 crore for data breaches and non-compliance, affecting enterprises’ financial performance and reputation.
- Protection of Children’s Data
Data Fiduciaries must get verifiable parental consent before processing data related to children. A significant change is that they can’t track, watch behaviours, or show targeted ads to children.
- Reasonable Safeguards
The Act takes a holistic approach to protect all personal data equally without differentiating between personal and sensitive personal data, aiming to ensure reasonable safeguards of data at the same level and that there is no unauthorized collection or processing of personal data.
What does the Act mean for businesses?
While the DPDP framework adopts a more liberal and improved approach to data protection and privacy, it compels companies to review their current privacy practices, use privacy-enhancing technologies, and educate their employees about the proper management of personal data.
The Act strikes an essential balance between protecting users’ rights and promoting innovation in digital businesses. The established cross-border data transfer will help attract foreign investments, boost startups, ease compliance, and enable the Government to address the data transfer issues effectively. The Act does not mandate local storage of personal data, allowing cost optimization and simplified compliance.
Data protection regulations can be uncertain, but they don’t have to be a stumbling block for businesses that proactively protect personal data. The Act fosters a culture of vigilance, enabling organizations to perform gap assessments and redress strategies by investing in robust cybersecurity measures to protect customer data and maintain a strong security posture against cyber adversaries.
How SEQRITE Can Keep Businesses Compliant with the Law?
SEQRITE is ready to support businesses and navigate India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act using advanced cybersecurity solutions. Our host of tools and solutions can help businesses across industries comply with data minimization, purpose limitation, and data accuracy.
- Data Privacy Management System (HawkkScan)
Improving data handling and compliance starts with ‘Data Discovery and Classification’. Our intuitive data privacy management solution, HawkkScan, helps business and government entities (Data Fiduciaries) to discover, categorize, and identify sensitive information scattered throughout their data landscape. It also helps manage data subject requests (Data Principals) to ensure total compliance with the DPDP Act and other regulations, including GDPR, HIPAA, and CCPA.
- Endpoint Security (EPS)
Our comprehensive Endpoint Security (EPS) solution offers advanced Data Loss Prevention to monitor confidential and user-defined data shared through removable drives, networks, or various applications and for 360-degree data security. EPS also minimizes instances of data breaches as it remotely analyses suspicious files for malware by integrating with SEQRITE Cloud Sandbox.
- eXtended Detection and Response (HawkkHunt XDR)
HawkkHunt XDR utilizes auto-triggered playbooks to respond spontaneously to critical environmental incidents by locking down and isolating vital assets like customer data. Thus enabling businesses to prevent cyberattacks from increasing further and fortifying their data privacy capabilities.
- Zero Trust User Access (HawkkProtect)
SEQRITE HawkkProtect shields business-critical applications from data breaches by implementing a zero-trust user access approach. This helps eliminate VPN requirements and ensures constant user verification and unauthorized entry to corporate apps and services while offering complete visibility of all user actions.
Key Takeaways
Data is and will remain the critical component of the thriving digital economy. And the Digital Personal Data Protection Law is a much-needed leap in India’s data privacy journey. The novel concept of deemed consent will offer opportunities for streamlined procedures, enhanced transparency, and a profound commitment to upholding data protection standards.
Take the first step towards securing your organization’s data by scheduling a call with our compliance expert team at SEQRITE today. Our highly skilled workforce foresaw the challenges the Digital Personal Data Protection Law might bring and has already launched various tools and solutions to help our customers stay fully compliant. The time to be proactive is now!
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