Consent is the cornerstone of data privacy as envisaged under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 ("DPDPA"). By requiring explicit and informed permission, individuals are protected from misuse of their personal data, and it fosters trust between users and organisations. Consent empowers individuals to control how their personal data is collected, used, and shared, ensuring that data processing is transparent, purposeful, and aligned with user expectations.
In the Indian context, unlike GDPR or other similar laws, Consent forms the legal basis for data processing in most cases (except for some legitimate uses where data can be processed without consent) and is the first step towards ensuring compliance with data privacy.
Typically, organisations believe that consent management is a straightforward process of obtaining consent via email or in some other form and creating a simple repository of that information. However, the challenges and complexity are quite enhanced.
To ensure privacy, a proper mechanism needs to be followed during the Data Lifecycle of Personal Data, which includes the following stages:
- Data Creation
- Data Storage
- Data Usage
- Data Archiving
- Data Destruction
Unlike a layperson's viewpoint, consent is not limited to the data creation stage but can be required at each stage of the data life cycle. A proper Consent Management System is the key to the success of the privacy program of the organisation.
The Business Requirement Document (BRD) for Consent Management System (CMS), released on June 6, 2025, by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), provides detailed guidelines for developing systems that manage consent across its full lifecycle: collection, validation, update, renewal, and withdrawal. These systems must be user-centric, compliant with legal obligations, and operationally efficient. They must also empower Data Principals to exercise control over their personal data while providing organisations with the tools to handle that control responsibly.
The objective of the Consent Management System is to:
- Enable Comprehensive Consent Lifecycle Management: Facilitate the full lifecycle of consent, including collection, validation, modification, renewal and withdrawal, in alignment with the requirements of the DPDP Act and its rules.
- Empower Data Principals: Provide a user-centric platform where individuals can view, manage and control their consent preferences and exercise their data rights, ensuring transparency and trust.
- Ensure Compliance with DPDP Act and Rules: Design the system to adhere strictly to the DPDP Act's regulations, including purpose limitation, data minimisation and secure processing of personal data.
This formal document helps build a consent management system, serving as a blueprint for all stakeholders concerned, including business teams building a consent system, developers, compliance officers and system architects. It can also serve as a source of information for those data principals (whose data is used by organisations) who want to know how a consent management system is developed. The document helps understand what needs to be built and why, and how it should function.
What is the Consent Management Lifecycle?
The Consent Management Lifecycle refers to the end-to-end handling of user consent from initial collection to eventual withdrawal, ensuring personal data is processed lawfully and transparently. The lifecycle framework ensures that the CMS system complies with the provisions of the DPDP Act and follows the data life cycle.
The consent management lifecycle consists of:
- Consent Collection: The first stage is consent collection, where clear, informed, and specific consent is obtained from data principals. This involves presenting users with concise information about what data will be collected, the purpose of collection, how it will be used, and the duration of consent, with the ability to provide granular consent. Transparency here is key to empowering users to make informed decisions.
- Consent Validation: In order to ensure and verify that user consent is properly obtained and still valid before any personal data is processed, Consent validation is the next crucial step. This ensures the alignment of data usage with the permissions granted by the individual, preventing unauthorised or unlawful data handling. This step is especially crucial as the DPDP Act provides for verifiable consent of a parent or guardian for children and PwDs. The identity of the parent or guardian may be verified through mediums like Digilocker.
- Consent Update: Consent update, being the next step, allows data principals to modify their consent by altering previously given permissions regarding how their personal data is used. The freedom this feature provides the data principals is the ability to change, expand or restrict their consent once given. Real-time updates can be given to data principals to demonstrate respect for user autonomy.
- Consent Renewal: Consent renewal ensures continued authorisation. If consent has expired or is nearing expiration, the data fiduciary shall allow data principals to renew consent. Data fiduciaries may automate renewal notifications to maintain lawful data use without interruption.
- Consent Withdrawal: Consent withdrawal allows data principals to revoke their consent at any time. It gives them full control over their personal data. The organisation should establish easy and accessible ways for data principals to withdraw consent. Records have to be updated immediately to halt any further data processing upon withdrawal of consent.
Supporting Features that Enhance Compliance
Supporting features are additional functions or capabilities in a system that improve overall effectiveness, usability or compliance, but are not necessarily a core legal requirement. Supporting features in consent management systems help the organisation improve user experience, security, or regulatory adherence beyond basic legal obligations.
Cookie Consent Management
One of the important features that also exists in GDPR is Cookie Consent. Here in the DPDPA, Cookie Consent Management allows data principals to control how cookies are used on websites. Essential, Analytics, Performance, and Marketing cookies are some granular preferences that can be offered to users. It ensures that only essential cookies are enabled by default. The cookie consent system will need to support multiple languages so that the system becomes more accessible. The system shall also set auto-expiry for both cookies and consent records. Such auto expiry shall be in compliance with the legally mandated retention standards.
User Dashboard
The user dashboard is a central hub in the system where the data principals can view, manage and control their data consents. This dashboard allows the data principal to see their consent history. Consent history includes active, expired, or withdrawn consent. This dashboard helps data principals modify or revoke specific permissions and raise grievances. It also serves as a platform to raise data access requests, corrections or deletion requests.
Consent Notifications
Consent notifications are sent by a consent management system whenever a consent-related action occurs. These notifications are sent to both the data principal and the data fiduciaries whenever a consent-related action occurs. The purpose of these alerts is to keep all the stakeholders informed. These can be sent in a variety of instances, such as consent approvals, withdrawals, renewals, and compliance events. Notifications may be delivered through multiple channels such as email, secure APIs, SMS, etc.
Grievance Redressal Mechanism
A grievance redressal mechanism can also be implemented through the consent management System. Complaints related to data privacy may be logged under a transparent tracking mechanism. Complaints may be categorised and assigned unique reference IDs. These complaints may be monitored through a resolution dashboard. Unresolved issues may be directed to higher authorities such as the Data Protection Officer (DPO). This mechanism streamlines the grievance redressal process and helps in the timely resolution of issues.
System Administration
The System Administration module manages access and data lifecycle within the Consent Management System. The module implements Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) to assign and restrict permissions based on user roles. This ensures secure and appropriate access. Additionally, it defines what the data retention policies are and automates the secure deletion of expired data. The data retention policies shall not be in derogation of the data privacy laws. This system maintains integrity through the use of audit trails and access monitoring.
Logging and Audit Readiness
This feature prevents tampering by ensuring all content-related actions are recorded in immutable logs. These logs provide a transparent record of activities such as consent granting, updates, withdrawals, and validations. This module is crucial in dispute resolution as logs can be used as evidence to support or repudiate a claim. They are also helpful for audit readiness, thus enabling organisations to demonstrate compliance with relevant data privacy laws.
In Conclusion
The Business Requirement Document (BRD) presents a framework for the formation and implementation of a consent management system in compliance with the DPDPA and the rules made thereunder. It serves as a guide for developers of this platform in companies and enables organisations to champion the principles of autonomy, transparency, and lawful governance of personal data as mandated by the DPDPA.
Organisations handling personal data are strongly encouraged to adopt a consent management framework as it not only reduces the risk of non-compliance and data misuse but also builds trust with users by promoting transparency and accountability in data practices. The implementation of this system leads to operational efficiency, as disputes with customers are reduced, and promotes ethical data governance. This system establishes a comprehensive framework designed to empower users, granting them greater control over their personal information. Additionally, it facilitates Data Fiduciaries to harmonise their operations with the continually evolving landscape of data protection regulations, ensuring they adhere to best practices and maintain the trust of their users.
The complete Business Requirement Document (BRD) for Consent Management System (CMS) can be accessed here: https://d38ibwa0xdgwxx.cloudfront.net/whatsnew-docs/8d5409f5-d26c-4697-b10e-5f6fb2d583ef.pdf
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.