How Tech Can Help Fast-track Compliance With Digital Privacy Rules Even as the new privacy rules empower private citizens, for internet-driven businesses it's a huge curveball. Can technology help?

After notification of the new digital privacy rules, internet-driven Indian businesses are scrambling for compliance. Understandably so, the new rules come with distinct challenges in terms of implementation, though to be rolled out in phases. However, experts believe that compliance in the longer run could soon go beyond just reputational and business risk requirements.

Before we hold forth, an update on the new Act and the Rules comes in the form of a submission from Union Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology Jitin Prasada in Lok Sabha on December 3.

According to the submission, the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (DPDP Act), and the Digital Personal Data Protection Rules, 2025 have been notified and that the rules and act provide a timelines for implementation of relevant provisions. Moreover, a Digital Data Protection Board has been notified as part of the provision of the rules.

The note further says the Act and the Rules provide for a simplified compliance framework for start-ups and certain data fiduciaries. The Act and Rules provide for the government to notify jurisdictions where transfer of personal data may be restricted.

"The government is also ensuring widespread awareness and adoption of the DPDP Act by educating citizens on their rights and responsibilities. Capacity-building initiatives, including workshops, conferences, expert sessions, and digital outreach campaigns are also being undertaken," it added.

DPDP Act: The Immediate Impact

Think of the DPDP Act and Rules as India's own GDPR-equivalent. The laws are aimed at simplifying the framework for the usage of digital personal data that is citizen-focused and supports innovation.

The DPDP Act was passed in Parliament in August 2023 while draft rules were released for consultation in January. The framework aims to be wholesome for protecting digital personal data, setting out the obligations of entities handling such data (Data Fiduciaries) and the rights and duties of individuals (Data Principals).

The rules say that Data Fiduciaries are mandated to provide a notice of consent to the individual (Data Principal) in a simple manner. They are also mandated to implement reasonable security measures such as data masking, encryption, and others to prevent potential data breaches. Entities suffering from data breaches and attacks are mandated to promptly inform affected individuals and a Data Protection Board (DPB).

READ MORE: India Pushes For Digital Privacy With DPDP Rules, 2025

Even as the new privacy rules empower private citizens with things like rights to correction and erasure, for internet-driven businesses, including global ones operating in India, it's a huge curveball. Some of the radical changes they have to make are setting up a consent architecture, which means building something more nuanced than mundane pre-ticked boxes or bundled permissions. These consent must be explicit and properly informed. As of now, not a lot of businesses have this kind of architecture. Furthermore, businesses have to build another architecture for data lifecycle management as the rules make it compulsory for erasure of the data after purpose is served. Now this is likely to need a separate workflow for larger companies which have a large user base.

Another area that will need immediate attention of internet businesses is setting up a mechanism for prompt alerts on data breaches. Businesses must also be prepped in case they are classified as Significant Data Fiduciary, which means the company will be subject to enhanced obligations such as annual Data Protection Impact Assessments, independent audits, algorithmic risk assessments, and potential data localization requirements for certain categories. This adds substantial compliance costs.

Finally, there's the grievance redressal mechanism wherein one needs a dedicated system where users can raise complaints, and they must respond within prescribed timelines. Most companies don't have this infrastructure today.

Need For Prioritising Compliance, And Deploying Tech

As mentioned above, privacy governance is unlikely to remain a bare minimum for internet businesses but will also evolve into a long-term strategy for organisations.

"Building strong privacy governance programs is not only a reputational and business risk requirement but is also an integral part of building a transparent and long-term sustainable organization of the future," noted EY in a blog post.

Even as we have discussed the need as well as immediate gaps to be fixed, it's important to understand how it can become a reality, and at a relatively fast pace. Can technology help?

Apeksha Kaushik, analyst at Gartner, calls for investing in the right governance technologies can make DPDP compliance more manageable and cost-effective for businesses of all sizes. By 2028, governance technologies will decrease regulatory compliance costs by 20%, enabling 10% more investment in strategic growth initiatives.

"This means that compliance is not just about avoiding penalties, it's an opportunity to free up resources for innovation and business growth. Forward-thinking organizations will leverage these efficiencies to stay competitive and agile in a rapidly evolving regulatory landscape," she added.

According to Redacto cofounder and CPO Shashank Karincheti, technology is the only way to make DPDP compliance sustainable at scale, and that one cannot manually manage consent for millions of users or track retention timelines across thousands of data elements.

"First, consent management platforms that handle collection, validation, updates, renewal, and withdrawal. These need to generate consent artifacts with complete metadata, store them securely, provide user dashboards where individuals can view their consent history and modify preferences, and alert Data Fiduciaries in real time when consent changes.

Second, data discovery and classification tools that scan your systems, identify what personal data you're holding, where it's stored, who has access, and how it flows across your infrastructure. This is fundamental for data-mapping exercises," Karincheti told Entrepreneur India.

He further explained that businesses must deploy a variety of technical systems. This includes an automated data lifecycle management which can help better track data collection, retention, and erasure whenever it is required. The architecture, however, will require specialised systems, specifically for systems with massive dataload to monitor real-time user acquisition, retention and churn. Another tech-enabled platform could be for breach detection and response, which monitors real-time unauthorised access, and quickly run probes into incidents, and automate report generations on the nature and scale of the breach.

Similarly, businesses can consider using technology to set up grievance-management systems where users can log complaints, track resolution status, receive responses within prescribed timelines, and escalate unresolved issues. This will need an integration with Data Protection Officer workflows. For Significant Data Fiduciaries, DPIA automation tools that help conduct annual impact assessments, document findings, assess algorithmic risks, and generate audit reports for Board submission.

"The architecture principle is privacy-by-design — build consent checking into every API call, make data minimization the default, implement purpose limitation at the database level, and encrypt personal data at rest and in transit. Compliance cannot be bolted on after the fact; it must be embedded in your technical architecture from the start," he added.

When you look at why businesses struggle with DPDP compliance, the core challenge is actually very simple: the personal data of their customers is everywhere. I call it the "Personal Data Sprawl" problem. Over the years, companies have accumulated a huge amount of customer information scattered across a multitude of systems - apps, databases, logs, data lakes, analytics tools, CRM platforms, logs, backups, even third-party services.

Skyflow, a security and privacy platform, is among the first ones to take a jab at building tech-enabled solutions for DPDP compliance. The company, backed by the likes of Insight Partners, has come up with a DPDP Data Privacy Vault Platform that helps enterprises exclusively protect personal data, govern its use, and accelerate safe AI innovation, while staying compliant with the rules.

The company noted that personal data now flows through every product, decision, and AI workflow, and in the process gets copied into countless systems. This "Personal data sprawl" shows up in app databases, logs, analytics warehouses, SaaS tools, reports, data lakes, and AI training pipelines. It's a growing risk, the company added, highlighting a 2024 Protiviti–CII survey that says only 24% of Indian organizations feel prepared for the privacy challenges posed by emerging technologies. The result is fragmented data that's nearly impossible to govern, protect, or use safely for AI with traditional security models.

"Skyflow Data Privacy Vault Platform tackles this challenge by isolating and protecting sensitive customer data in a centralized data privacy vault while securing the flow of data across datastores, agents and models.Skyflow's platform provides an architectural foundation to meet the technical requirements of DPDP rules which require system-level actions and safeguard personal data throughout its lifecycle," it added.

Speaking with Entrepreneur India, Skyflow APAC Head of Sales Deepak Annamalai said that over the years, companies have accumulated a huge amount of customer information scattered across a multitude of systems - apps, databases, logs, data lakes, analytics tools, CRM platforms, logs, backups, even third-party services.

"The good news is the solution to the problem is also simple. Compliance becomes significantly easier when businesses shift from incremental patches to a more foundational approach. Instead of having personal data living everywhere, companies need to think about isolating it and using systems to protect & govern that don't rely on human memory to ensure compliance. And why prioritize it? Because trust is the new moat. When customers believe you handle their data with care, they're more loyal than any discount or feature can make them," he added.

On deploying tech, Annamalai drew parallels with the Aadhaar data vault that helped solve the Aadhaar safety and use problem.

"To achieve the solution, the principles are clear: Discover, Isolate, Protect and Govern. Data privacy vaults, like how Aadhaar data vault solved the Aadhaar safety and use problem, are increasingly solving this for enterprises in a way that satisfies multiple stakeholders such as engineering, legal, compliance, data, AI and security teams while making it easier for executives and board scale the future of the company," he further said.

On how smaller firms can get on board with compliance, the Skyflow executive points out that less legacy and sprawl, and fewer moving parts give them advantage vis-a-vis firms which have complex webs of workflows and silos to deal with different aspects of compliance.

"For smaller firms, the challenge is different from large enterprises. They don't have 30-year-old legacy systems with technical debt. A 50-person startup can implement consent management faster than a bank with multiple core systems. They can build compliance into their product from day one using privacy-by-design principles," added Karincheti of Redacto.

Karincheti, however, also raised concerns about the non-level playing field for smaller firms which may not have access to high-end resources.

"Smaller firms don't have dedicated compliance teams or Data Protection Officers. But that's where technology platforms help — instead of building everything from scratch, they can use consent management systems that integrate via APIs, handle the full consent lifecycle, and maintain audit trails automatically," he said.

"The key is to start now. Map your data flows, understand what personal data you're collecting and why, implement consent collection interfaces, and build your breach response playbook. Don't wait until the deadline approaches," he cautioned.

According to Gartner's Kaushik, smaller firms have a real opportunity to catch up on data protection by focusing on data integrity alongside confidentiality.

"By 2028, investments in data protection focused on data integrity are expected to approach or reach the same level as those for confidentiality. This shift will help level the playing field, allowing SMEs to meet regulatory requirements and protect their customers' data with the same rigor as larger enterprises. Early investment in data integrity will be key to building resilience and trust," she explained.

Tech's The Way

Even as it's relatively easier for large companies or well-funded startups to quickly act on deploying these technologies, a better compliance scenario will be when these specialised tech will be democratised through easy access and at extremely low-cost. It is also highly unlikely that the companies will prefer manual scavenging and management of these datasets. However, systems such as automated consent management platforms, data discovery solutions, and integrated grievance systems along with human oversight will make it extremely easy for companies, which are seeking to comply and avoid any punitive actions by regulators on account of non-compliance.