Consent Management in India: Empowering Data principals and Ensuring Privacy in the Digital Age

Sameer Ahirrao -

In the rapidly digitizing landscape of India, data has become a critical asset, and its protection is more important than ever. With increasing digital transactions, online services, and personal data exchange, ensuring user privacy is no longer optional, it's a necessity. At the heart of this effort lies consent management, a mechanism designed to give individuals (data principals) control over how their personal data is collected, processed, and shared.

This blog explores the evolving framework of consent management in India, its implications under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act (DPDPA) 2023, and how organizations can operationalize privacy by design to build trust and transparency.

Understanding Consent Management

Consent management refers to the process by which organizations obtain, track, and manage consent from individuals for processing their personal data. It ensures that data processing activities are lawful, transparent, and aligned with the individual's preferences.

Under India’s data protection laws, consent must be:

  • Free – Given without coercion.
  • Informed – The data principal must be clearly informed of the purpose, nature, and consequences.
  • Specific – Consent should be purpose-specific.
  • Unambiguous – Express and affirmative action must be taken.
  • Granular – Different purposes should have separate consents.
  • Revocable – The data principal must be able to withdraw consent as easily as it was given.

Consent and the DPDPA 2023

India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 establishes a robust consent-centric framework. Here are key highlights:

1) Role of the Data Principal: The individual whose data is being collected is termed the Data Principal. The law empowers them with the right to consent, access, correct, and erase their data.

2) Consent Manager: The DPDPA introduces the concept of a Consent Manager, an independent entity registered with the Data Protection Board of India, responsible for facilitating, managing, and auditing consent flows between data principals and data fiduciaries.

3) Notice Requirements: Before obtaining consent, organizations (called Data Fiduciaries) must provide a clear and plain-language notice outlining:

  • Purpose of data collection
  • Type of data being collected
  • Details of data sharing and retention

4) Withdrawal and Redressal: Individuals can withdraw their consent at any time and must be informed of the consequences. The data fiduciary must cease processing unless another legal basis applies.

Challenges in Implementing Consent Management

Despite its benefits, effective consent management poses several challenges:

  • Scalability: Managing consent at scale across millions of users and touchpoints.
  • Interoperability: Ensuring uniform consent capture across platforms, apps, and third-party systems.
  • User Experience: Designing interfaces that are simple, yet meet legal and regulatory compliance.
  • Auditability: Keeping a verifiable trail of all consent interactions for regulatory review.

How Ardent Privacy’s TurtleShield Supports Consent Management


Comprehensive Consent Across Channels

TurtleShield CM (Consent Management) empowers enterprises to automate privacy notices, gather and manage user consent and opt-out preferences, and operationalize these preferences across internal systems and third-party data processors.

Consent Beyond Cookies

1) With the advent of data protection regulations such as the Digital Personal Data Protection Act (DPDPA), and similar global frameworks, user consent has become central to lawful data processing.

2) Unlike outdated cookie-based approaches that store preferences locally in browsers, TurtleShield CM maintains consent records securely in a centralized database, accessible at any time via API.

3) This approach enables what we call Unified Consent Management: managing consent across diverse enterprise touchpoints including mobile and web apps, email, SMS, voice interfaces, IoT devices, and even physical environments like retail stores, hospitality spaces, and stadiums.

Parental Consent and Youth Privacy

For use cases involving minors (under 18), TurtleShield CM supports age estimation, identification of parents or guardians, and collection of parental consent, all in compliance with applicable regulations.

Seamless Integration and Deployment

Privacy laws require consent to be captured before any data processing or tracking activity. TurtleShield CM simplifies this by providing:

  • Comprehensive technical documentation
  • 20+ prebuilt integration examples
  • Flexible API support

Enterprises can embed TurtleShield CM into existing user preference centers or use the pre-built dashboards included with the platform.

Clear and User-Friendly Privacy Notices

1) TurtleShield CM helps enterprises present transparent, multilingual privacy notices inspired by the “Nutrition Facts” model, promoting user understanding and trust.

2) These notices are fully editable via a self-service dashboard for legal and privacy teams, without IT involvement. Support is included for all 23 languages mandated by DPDPA.

3) Notices can also be deployed in physical locations via QR codes, enabling omnichannel privacy communication.

Conclusion: Trust Through Transparency

Role of Consent management under India's DPDPA is not just about ticking compliance checkboxes, it’s about respecting user autonomy and building long-term trust. As India embraces a digital-first future, empowering individuals through informed consent will be pivotal in creating a safe, transparent, and privacy-respecting data ecosystem.

Organizations that invest in robust consent management mechanisms today will be better positioned to build user trust, minimize regulatory risk, and differentiate themselves in a privacy-conscious market.