Top 10 operational impacts of India’s DPDPA – Data protection impact assessments

This article is part of a series that explores components of the DPDPA.

The operationalization of India's data protection law, the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, establishes how data fiduciaries can collect and process the personal data of data principals — the individuals whose data is processed.

Data fiduciaries determine the purpose and means of data processing; that is, they control the data processing activity. In contrast, data processors merely process data on behalf of a data fiduciary.

The DPDPA also recognizes another class of entities — significant data fiduciaries — that are subject to a heightened set of requirements under the law. Among these is the requirement to conduct a data protection impact assessment.

What are DPIAs?

A DPIA is an assessment of processing activities carried out to identify privacy risks and to develop and document ways to minimize and manage those risks. It flows from the privacy-by-design principle, which requires organizations to systematically include privacy considerations in the early stages of any new project or processing activity. A documented assessment of risks helps an organization identify and minimize risks to individuals from the beginning and demonstrates its commitment to data protection.

The DPDPA describes a DPIA as a process that sets out a description of the data principals' rights, the purpose of processing their personal data, and an assessment and management of the risks to their rights.

Who must conduct DPIAs?