Introduction

The DPDPA holds significant importance for businesses for several reasons—not least because India is home to 1.4 billion people who previously had no data privacy protection. The Act confers new rights to individuals and responsibilities to businesses, and noncompliance can lead to severe penalties .Businesses must focus on consent management, as consent is likely to serve as the primary basis for data processing. If classified as a significant data fiduciary (SDF), businesses must appoint a data-protection officer (DPO) based in India to oversee compliance with the DPDPA.

The steps to prepare for DPDPA compliance can be categorized into four stages: readiness, preparation, assessment, and ongoing compliance.

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Navigating DPDPA Compliance:

Readiness

• Determine Applicability: Assess whether your organization processes digital personal data within, or outside India related to offering goods or services to data principals within India.
• Identify Data Principals: The provisions of the DPDPA apply to digital personal data related to data principals. In the employment context, data principals include current and former employees, active and rejected job applicants, and contingent employees, such as interns, contractors, and consultants.
• Map Your Data: Identify the types of personal data you collect, why you collect it, and how you process it to understand the scope of your data processing activities and identify potential risks.
• Plan for a cyber security assessment: The DPDPA focuses on safeguarding personal data and upholding individual rights. A cybersecurity assessment based on established standards can help organizations ensure they have the necessary security controls in place to protect personal data and comply with the DPDPA. Conducting a cybersecurity assessment demonstrates an organization's commitment to data security and privacy, which can enhance its reputation and customer confidence.
• Align your budgets: it's crucial to align your budgets with the requirements of the Digital Personal Data Protection Act (DPDPA) in India. This involves ensuring compliance with data localization mandates, hiring a DPO and other emerging regulations, which may necessitate revisions to existing agreements and practices.

Preparation‍

• Create a Data Protection Policy and Privacy Notice: Develop a policy outlining how you collect, use, and protect personal data and include a privacy notice informing individuals about their rights under the DPDPA.
• Appoint a Data Protection Officer (DPO): Designate a DPO responsible for ensuring DPDPA compliance, managing data audits, and serving as a point of contact for grievance redressal.
• Set-up Consent Mechanisms: If data processing relies on consent, comply with consent requirements under the Act and build a compliance plan that includes developing a consent request process, creating processes for collecting and managing the verifiable consent of parents of children and lawful guardians of persons with disabilities, and building a consent withdrawal process.
• Implementation of security measures: Implementing appropriate security measures to prevent unauthorized access, collection, use, or disclosure of data, such as internal data security policies and employee training.
• Ensure Third Party Compliance with the Law: Ensure that any third-party service provider that accesses customer information is compliant with DPDPA.
• Prepare for Data Subject Rights Requests: Be prepared to respond to requests for access, erasure, and correction of personal data, as the DPDPA establishes a comprehensive rights-based framework for data protection.

Assessment

• Conduct Data Privacy Impact Assessments: Be ready for data audits by DPBI-approved independent auditors. Reports submitted to the regulatory body should reflect compliance with DPDPA.
• Business Impact Assessment(BIA): evaluates the impact of a new process or event on how it affects the privacy rights of data subjects/data principles. BIA focuses on the impact of an event and can be conducted at multiple levels within an organization.
• Assess the Impact of Cyber Risks to Your Business: Utilize cutting-edge technologies such as Alfahive's Automation Platform, finely tuned with comprehensive data on cyber loss events and tailored to industry-specific risk scenarios. This platform seamlessly gauges the impact of cyber risks on your business, empowering strategic risk management and facilitating informed reporting decisions. The transparency inherent in automation technology offers a clear and systematic approach to assessing the repercussions of cyber risks, enabling well-informed decisions, and ensuring the transparent disclosure of significant cybersecurity risks and incidents.
• Third-Party Compliance: This includes ensuring that any third-party service provider that accesses customer information is compliant with the DPDPA. Alfahive's platform offers a holistic approach to third-party risk management, integrating both inside-out and outside-in perspectives. This approach allows for a comprehensive evaluation of third-party vendors, ensuring they meet the necessary data protection standards. One of the key features of Alfahive's platform is its ability to conduct comprehensive due diligence when onboarding new third parties or renewing existing agreements. This includes evaluating their cybersecurity measures and ensuring they are compliant with data protection regulations.

Ongoing Compliance

• Monitor and Audit Employee Access to Personal Data: Regularly review and audit access to personal data to ensure compliance with the DPDPA.
• Train Your Staff on DPDPA: Provide regular training to help your staff understand the DPDPA and how to comply with it.
• Review and Update Your Compliance Program: Verify your compliance program with a checklist and address any gaps in the process.
• Leverage Automation Technology: Convert Security Controls into Cyber Risks - Leverage Cyber Risk Automation Platform that can seamlessly integrate with enterprise security tools through APIs and understand the state of controls with reduced ambiguity. Leverage MITRE ATT&CK and D3FEND frameworks to translate security controls into the likelihood of Cyber Risks. It allows companies to regularly monitor and assess their cybersecurity maturity to identify and address risks. This includes staying up-to-date with the latest cybersecurity threats and trends and implementing necessary changes to the security controls landscape to stay ahead of potential risks. Alfahive integrates seamlessly with enterprise security tools and leveraging frameworks such as MITRE ATT&CK and D3FEND, and champions in translating security controls into the likelihood of cyber risks.
• Security Incident Notification: In an event of a security incident ,such as a data breach, you need to have a plan in place to notify affected individuals and relevant authorities. This includes defining an Incident Response (IR) plan that meets the breach notification timelines and conducting periodic incident response drills.

Compliance with the DPDPA is an ongoing process, and regular monitoring, training, and updates to your compliance program will help ensure that your business remains compliant.