Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023

The Indian Parliament passed the much-awaited data privacy legislation known as the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (DPDPA) in August 2023. It has received the President’s assent and has been published in the official gazette. However, various provisions of the DPDPA have not come into force as yet as its implementation is to be carried out in a phased manner. Recently Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar said that the accompanying rules of the DPDPA are ready and will be notified by early January 2024. Unlike the European Union which gave organizations a period of two years to comply with their data protection legislation known as the ‘General Data Protection Regulation’ (GDPR), the Indian government is looking at a timeline of 4-6 months for the industry to comply and align business practices with the new personal data protection law. The DPDPA has been largely influenced by the GDPR and drafted based on the same underlying principles such as lawfulness, fairness, transp...