DPDP India vs GDPR Europe

By

aditya

March 26, 2024

Dive into the nuances of India's DPDP Act & GDPR, exploring their objectives and differences, and how Privy aids compliance with global privacy practices.

The DPDP Act was passed in the parliament & came into force in August 2023. While this is the first time a law has been passed to uphold an individual's privacy in India, there have been data privacy laws already that have been in force for a few years now. As organizations are building the implementation pathway to compliance, they should also seek inspiration from steps taken by organizations outside India to become compliant. However, not all data privacy laws have the same obligations and it is vital to understand the similarities & differences to be able to pick up the right things from the best practices. In this article, we try to break down the similarities & differences between India’s DPDP Act & the data privacy laws outside India - primarily the European GDPR which is considered to be one the most stringent & comprehensive data privacy laws in the world.

Similarities between DPDP & GDPR

The intention of all comprehensive data privacy laws remain the same, so do the objectives of both the DPDP & the GDPR -

Granting individuals rights over their personal data - right to access, right to modification, right to erasure etc.
Several Obligations on the organizations to uphold individuals’s data privacy rights, such as - take informed consent before processing personal data, implement security measures to prevent data breaches etc.
Provisions for enforcement of the law including imposing heavy penalties on organizations for non-compliance with the act.

Though the objectives largely remain the same, there are some differences on the applicability, scope of different obligations, the fine structure etc. What we highlight next is the implementational differences between GDPR & DPDPA -

Differences

While organizations can learn from best practices in data privacy globally, the Indian law does have its own unique aspects. Further, different geographies have different challenges when it comes to implementation. It remains to be seen how the implementation pans out in India.

IDfy has developed Privy, a consent governance platform that helps you manage / update customer preferences. We have developed this taking into account the like inspiration from best practices globally, incorporating the nuances in the DPDP Act and solving for implementation challenges in the Indian context.

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