The DPDP Act 2023 + Rules 2025

India's privacy law, in plain English.

The Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 with the DPDP Rules 2025 is now in force. Maximum penalty ₹250 Crore per violation. Here's what every section means — and where Vishwaas AI handles it.

Act sections

What each section requires.

§5

Notice

A data fiduciary must give every data principal a clear, standalone notice in English plus any of the 22 Eighth Schedule languages — before or at the time of collection. Must list legal entity, DPO, grievance officer, DPBI registration (for SDFs), rights portal URL, and withdrawal portal URL.
§6

Consent

Consent must be free, specific, informed, unambiguous, and revocable. Pre-ticked boxes are invalid. Withdrawal must be as easy as grant. The fiduciary must be able to prove what was consented to, by whom, when, in which language.
§7

Legitimate Uses

Eight narrow sub-grounds (employment, public interest, medical emergency, pandemic, etc.) allow processing without consent. Activities under §7 never appear in privacy notices and are never consent-collected — but still subject to data minimisation and audit.
§8

Fiduciary Obligations

Maintain Record of Processing Activities (§8(4)), notify the DPBI within 72 hours of a breach (§8(6)), restrict processing to declared purposes. Significant Data Fiduciaries face heightened obligations under §10.
§9

Children's Data

Verifiable parental / guardian consent required for anyone under 18. No tracking, behavioural monitoring, or targeted advertising to children. Vishwaas AI supports five guardian-verification strategies including DigiLocker.
§10

Significant Data Fiduciaries

Tenants designated as SDFs must complete DPIAs, appoint a DPO, audit annually, and meet additional obligations. Vishwaas AI gates these obligations on the is_sdf tenant flag.
§11–14

Data Principal Rights

Right to access (§11), correction + erasure (§12), grievance redressal (§13 — 30-day SLA, DPBI escalation), nomination (§14). All six rights orchestrated in one DPR module.
§16

Cross-Border Transfers

Transfer of personal data outside India only to countries notified by the Central Government. Vishwaas AI tracks adequacy status, flags non-adequate countries, and enforces DPIA gating for SDFs.
§17

Carve-outs

The fiduciary may reject rights requests under specified grounds (legal obligation, freedom of expression, public interest). Reasons must be documented; the principal may escalate.
DPDP Rules 2025

The three rules that bite first.

Rule 3 — Notice readiness

Notice must be standalone, multilingual, and version-locked before publishing. The Vishwaas notice composer enforces a six-check publish gate.

Rule 4 — Consent records

7-year retention of consent records. Withdrawals must be possible at the same point and ease as grant. Vishwaas keeps an append-only hash-chained ledger.

Rule 8(3) — Pre-deletion notice

48-hour pre-deletion notice with a retraction link before any erasure executes. Vishwaas enforces this with a scheduled_deletion_atpre_notice_sent_at + 47h constraint.
Obligation mapping

Every obligation, mapped to a module.

The full DPDP Act and Rules 2025 obligation set, mapped to the Vishwaas AI module that operationalises it.

ProvisionObligationVishwaas module
§5Notice before processingPrivacy Notice Management
§6 · Rule 3Free, specific, informed consent + notice gateConsent Lifecycle (hash-chained ledger)
§7Legitimate-use sub-grounds (no consent required)Processing activity register
§8(6)Breach notification to DPBI + principalsBreach Management (72h countdown)
§8(7)Retention limitation + erasureData Inventory & Retention
§9Verifiable parental consent for childrenConsent Lifecycle (age + guardian gates)
§§11–14Access, correction, erasure, grievance, nominationDPR Management (90-day SLA)
Rule 3Itemised notice in English + 22 languagesNotice gate workflows
Rule 4Consent Manager registration & interoperabilityConsent Manager-ready architecture
Cl.10 / §10Significant Data Fiduciary duties (DPIA, audit, board report)DPIA + SDF compliance pack
Common gaps

Where most organisations are non-compliant today.

⚠️ No cryptographic consent proof

Only database timestamps that any DBA can alter.

⚠️ English-only privacy notices

Rule 3 requires Eighth Schedule languages.

⚠️ DPR requests in spreadsheets

No 30-day grievance SLA enforcement.

⚠️ No 48-hour pre-deletion notice

Rule 8(3) violations on every erasure.

⚠️ Ad hoc breach notifications

No 72-hour DPBI countdown discipline.

See where you stand — in 20 minutes.

Use our free Readiness Gap Analyser to identify the highest-risk gaps across six DPDP compliance pillars. No login required.