In today’s world where data is the new oil for industries, transparent and compliant consent practices are essential for maintaining user trust and meeting legal compliance requirements. Maintaining comprehensive records of consent plays a vital role in compliance with privacy laws around the globe including the Digital Personal Data Protection Act (DPDPA), 2023 and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Such records must identify the data principal, preserve proof of consent and record the consenting action.
What is Consent Directory?
Consent Foundation is building an innovative open-source platform, the Consent Directory, which will act a solution to all your consent compliance requirements. The directory will encompass key consent purpose statements for various industries and departments. The Which will enable the directory to support various industries and serve across sectors, the Consent Directory will serve to ensure companies adhere to the DPDPA, 2023, transforming how businesses will manage user consent. This will ease the consent compliance burden of most companies by providing standardized consent purpose statements without having to create them from scratch, which can be easily integrated into existing systems and processes, minimizing disruption to current operations. Further, the consolidated directory will make it easier to prepare for regulatory audits.
Key Features of the Consent Directory
DPDPA Guidance and Mandates: The Consent Directory is designed to comply with the DPDPA’s stringent consent requirement provisions. The directory provides clear directives on how consent purposes should be communicated to the user. The directory’s statements will be designed in a form that will meet the criteria of being clear, unambiguous, specific so that it is transparent and understandable to users.
Comprehensive List of Consent Purposes: The directory offers a vast repository of over 20,000 consent purposes collected from various industries. This extensive collection is the result of thorough research and communication with industry experts, ensuring the directory addresses diverse scenarios and needs to ensure that companies’ burden of doing the same is reduced. One of the salient features of this directory is its variegated nature covering the nuanced requirements across sectors.
Industry-Specific Categorization: To simplify the process for businesses, the Consent Directory will be categorizing consent purposes by industry. Whether a company operates in Fintech, Insurance, HealthTech, or another sector, it will be easily to find relevant and tailored consent statements for ready use. This categorization will streamline the task of identifying appropriate consent statements, ensuring that businesses do not waste time sifting through irrelevant information. Companies’ can access industry-specific guidance with relevant examples and tailored language, navigate through well-organized categories.
Clear and Concise Statements: Consent statements provided by the directory are consciously crafted to be clear, concise, and user-friendly. These statements will meet the yardstick of DPDPA’s requirements because it aims to specifically focus on ensuring that the ordinary man or the user can understand why their data is being collected and how it will be used, fostering trust and transparency.
Multilingual Support: Recognizing India’s linguistic diversity, and the mandate under the DPDPA, the Consent Directory will include the consent statements in versions in various Schedule 8 languages such as Marathi, Kannada, and more. This feature ensures that consent statements are accessible and comprehensible to users across different regions as per their choices.
Open-Source Initiative: As mentioned earlier, the Consent Directory is an open-source platform, inviting collaboration and continuous improvement. Organizations and developers working in data privacy or other entities covered under the DPDPA can actively contribute to the repository as per their experience and requirements that they have encountered, which will ensure that the directory remains up to date with legal and industry changes.
Addressing Common Problems Faced by Companies
Complexity of Compliance: Navigating the complexities of DPDPA compliance can be daunting for the companies. DPDPA requires multifaceted compliance on aspects like- consent, infosec, rights management, data governance, etc. The Consent Directory will aim to ease the complexity in the realm of consent governance by providing ready-to-use, legally compliant consent statements.
Crafting Clear Consent Statements: Companies can always draft legally compliant consent statements for the users, but the question that arises in such a scenario is whether those statements will hold water in terms of being understandable to the users because only then they will stand through the touchstone of DPDPA. To counter this anomaly, the directory offers pre-crafted statements which will be in a format that can be easily understood by a layman. The foundation is also striving to make the statements concise so that the user is motivated to read the statements and give meaningful consent.
Industry-Specific Needs: Different industries have unique consent requirements because of different purposes for which they collect data and the diverse way in which they function, which affects their data governance practices. The Consent Directory’s industry-specific categorization helps companies find relevant consent purposes tailored to their specific sector, streamlining the compliance process.
Language Barriers: India’s linguistic diversity presents a challenge in ensuring consent statements are understood by all users. The directory’s multilingual support addresses this issue, making consent statements accessible in multiple languages.
The Consent Directory Initiative
The Consent Directory is more than just a tool for compliance—it’s an initiative to promote transparency, compliance, and user trust in data handling practices. By offering a comprehensive, open-source resource, the Consent Foundation empowers businesses to manage user consent effectively and responsibly.
It aims to provide a common source for compliance requirements and foster unity amongst regulated entities under the DPDPA to come up with cutting edge compliance practices to enhance ease of doing business.
Extensive Research and Communication
The creation of the Consent Directory involved extensive research and communication with various industries. Its genesis includes invaluable opinions and oversight of professionals working in the field over the years. Over 20,000 consent purposes were collected, ensuring the directory is robust and comprehensive. This collaborative effort highlights the directory’s commitment to addressing the real-world needs of businesses and users alike.
The Consent Directory is an indispensable tool for any organization navigating the complexities of data consent under the DPDPA. Its comprehensive list of consent purposes will ensure that businesses cover all potential data collection and usage scenarios, ensuring full compliance with legal requirements. By categorizing consent purposes by industry, the directory will provide relevant and tailored examples, allowing companies to find sector-specific consent statements quickly and efficiently. Additionally, the multilingual support will extend the directory’s utility to operations across regions in India, facilitating compliance in diverse linguistic regions. As an open-source platform, it offers flexibility and continuous improvement through community contributions. Any organization can deploy Consent Foundation’s Consent Directory to revolutionize approach to data protection, fostering a culture of transparency and trust.
