Security Consulting & Compliance
DPDP Act 2023 Compliance
Consent, data-principal rights, grievance SLAs, notices, DPIAs and vendor risk under India's DPDP Act.
Every engagement includes manual validation, a two audience report and free re-testing.
Get a scoped quote+91 96682 00222What this actually is
The Digital Personal Data Protection Act changed the maths. Penalties run up to 250 crore rupees per breach type, and the obligations are operational rather than paperwork: consent you can prove, rights requests answered inside a clock, grievances tracked to closure, and a Data Protection Officer who is genuinely reachable.
Most organisations we meet have a privacy policy and very little else. They cannot say where personal data actually lives, they have no mechanism to honour a deletion request, and their processor contracts predate the Act entirely.
We start with discovery, because you cannot protect or delete what you cannot find. Then we build the operating machinery: consent capture, rights workflow, grievance SLAs, notices, DPIAs and vendor obligations, with evidence retained throughout.
What we go after
- Personal data discovery and mapping across systems and vendors
- Consent capture, withdrawal and record keeping
- Data principal rights workflow with SLA tracking
- Grievance redressal mechanism and escalation
- Privacy notices in the languages the Act requires
- Data Protection Impact Assessments
- Processor and sub-processor contract review
- Breach notification readiness and rehearsal
How we run it
- 01
Gap assessment
We measure you against the standard as it is actually audited, not as it reads on paper.
- 02
Remediation plan
Every gap gets an owner, an effort estimate and a date. You decide what lands this quarter.
- 03
Implement and evidence
We write the policy, build the control and collect the artefact that proves it is working.
- 04
Internal audit
A dry run under audit conditions, so nothing in the real one is a surprise.
- 05
Certify and maintain
We sit on your side of the table for the audit, then keep the evidence current between cycles.
What you receive
- Data inventory and processing register
- Gap assessment against the Act and draft rules
- Consent and rights operating procedures
- Notice templates and grievance workflow
- DPIA methodology and completed assessments for high-risk processing
- Board-level readiness report
Who needs this
Every organisation processing personal data of individuals in India. Significant Data Fiduciaries carry additional obligations including a DPO, independent audit and DPIAs.
How long it takes
Six to twelve weeks for readiness in a mid-sized organisation, longer where data discovery uncovers systems nobody documented.
Standards this satisfies
- DPDP Act 2023
- GDPR
- ISO 27701
- ISO 27018
Why it matters
Almost nobody starts a certification because they want one. It starts because a customer will not sign without it, a regulator has asked, or a deal is sitting still while procurement waits for evidence. The commercial driver is real and it is worth being honest that it, rather than security, is usually what pays for the programme.
The security benefit is real too, but it comes from a specific place: the discipline of having to evidence that a control operated over a period, rather than that it was configured once. That is the part that changes behaviour, and it is also the part organisations consistently underestimate.
Choose how you want this delivered
Most of the price difference between quotes comes down to this one choice, and it is rarely explained. Pick one to see what it covers, what it suits and what it costs you.
Gap assessment, then we work alongside your team through remediation, internal audit and the certification audit itself. Your people do the work and own the outcome, which is what makes the management system survive after we leave. This is what most organisations should choose.
Choose this when
- You have a team who can absorb the work alongside their day job
- You want the capability to remain in-house afterwards
- First certification where documentation is the main gap
Effort and cost
Moderate. The calendar is longer than a managed programme because the work competes with everyone's existing responsibilities.
Scope it yourself, before you call anyone
Answer a few questions and you get an indicative number, the working behind it and what your answers tell us. It runs in your browser, so nothing you type reaches us.
Do you have a current record of what personal data you hold and why?
Covering every system, including analytics copies, exports and test environments.
What we look for, and keep finding
These are the classes of problem this work exists to surface. Not every engagement finds all of them, but these are the ones that turn up often enough to be worth naming.
Controls that exist on paper only
The policy says quarterly access reviews. The evidence shows one, eighteen months ago, and it was not completed. This is the single most common audit finding across every framework.
Scope drawn too narrowly
A certificate covering a subset of the business that customers assume covers all of it. Auditors check the boundary; buyers rarely do. Getting scope right is the most consequential early decision.
Evidence that cannot be reproduced
A screenshot proves a control was configured on the day someone took it. A framework wants proof it operated throughout the period. Those are very different, and the gap only appears at the audit.
Exceptions with no expiry
Risk accepted once, recorded, and never revisited. Over a few years these accumulate into an undocumented second control framework nobody is managing.
Third parties outside the boundary
Processing carried out by a supplier who was assessed at onboarding and never since, while your obligation for their handling of your data continues regardless.
Who runs your engagement
A lead assessor who has sat on the other side of the table
Compliance work is led by an assessor who has taken organisations through certification, not by a consultant reading the standard for the first time with you. They know which findings a certification body will actually raise, which is a different list from what the standard technically says.
Questions we get asked
Are we a Significant Data Fiduciary?
It depends on the volume and sensitivity of what you process, the risk to data principals and a few other factors the government notifies. We assess this early because the additional obligations are material.
We already comply with GDPR. Is that enough?
It is a strong head start but it is not the same law. Consent standards, grievance timelines, notice language requirements and the DPO obligation all differ. We map what carries over and what does not.
How do we keep this working after the project ends?
DPDP 360 runs the consent ledger, rights queue, grievance SLAs and evidence trail as ongoing operations rather than a document set that goes stale.
Often scoped alongside
- CERT-In Cyber Security AuditCERT-In empanelled audit and certification for government and regulated entities.Read more
- ISO 27001 Audit & CertificationISMS design, implementation, internal audit and certification support end to end.Read more
- ISO 27017 Compliance AuditCloud-specific security controls for providers and customers.Read more
- ISO 27018 Compliance AuditProtection of personally identifiable information in public clouds.Read more
Ready to scope your dpdp act 2023 compliance?
Thirty minutes with a senior engineer, and you leave with a written scope and indicative effort.