Architecting Digital Autonomy: Consent Management Systems Under India’s DPDP Act

For years, India’s digital economy flourished in a legal vacuum. Personal data was collected, processed, monetised, and exchanged with little scrutiny or systemic accountability. Citizens signed up for services, used apps, shopped online, and navigated government platforms, often unaware of how much of their personal information was being harvested or how it was being used. Consent, where it was sought at all, was often buried in dense privacy policies or rendered meaningless by bundled terms.

All of that changes with the arrival of the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, a long-anticipated legislation that seeks to recalibrate the relationship between individuals and the entities that collect their data. The DPDPA doesn’t just impose obligations on companies; it affirms that personal data belongs to the individual, and that any use of it must begin with freely given, specific, informed, and unambiguous consent. This is not a cosmetic change, it is a fundamental shift in legal architecture.

But laws are only as effective as the systems that bring them to life. The DPDPA lays down the principles, transparency, purpose limitation, data minimisation, and the right to withdraw consent. But it also demands that organisations operationalise these rights in a way that is seamless, accessible, and verifiable. That responsibility now falls squarely on the Consent Management System (CMS).

A CMS is not just a tech tool, it is the bridge between compliance and ethics. It ensures that consent isn’t a one-time formality, but an ongoing dialogue. It enables individuals to view, modify, and revoke their consent across services and platforms, while providing businesses with an auditable trail of lawful processing. In effect, the CMS becomes the nervous system of privacy compliance in the DPDPA regime.

As India steps into this new era of data protection, the CMS will play a critical role in ensuring that the right to informational self-determination isn’t just a promise on paper, but a lived reality for every digital citizen.

I. Consent as Constitutional Code: The Legal Ethos

The DPDPA recognizes consent as a manifestation of individual agency. But this is not merely about ticking a box, it is about furnishing individuals (referred to as Data Principals) with granular control over their data, purpose by purpose, in a manner that is clear, revocable, and transparent.

A functional CMS is the institutional expression of this right. It renders consent traceable, renewable, and enforceable across interfaces, jurisdictions, and third-party processors.

II. The Lifecycle of Consent: From Grant to Withdrawal

The design of the CMS follows a clear lifecycle logic:

1. Collection: Consent must be sought through a user-facing interface that is not only accessible but also intelligible. The interface must separate essential services from optional ones, making bundled consent impermissible. Consent must be specific to clearly defined purposes—such as identity verification, marketing, or analytics—and the act of consenting must be deliberate and affirmative.

2. Validation: Prior to any instance of data processing, the CMS must validate the consent through real-time checks. This includes confirming that the purpose aligns with what was agreed, and that the consent remains active and unrevoked. The CMS performs this function through secure APIs, ensuring that Data Fiduciaries cannot proceed with data use in the absence of a valid legal basis.

3. Update: In a dynamic data environment, purposes evolve. Whether introducing a new use-case or extending data retention timelines, updates necessitate fresh consent. Users must be notified with context and invited to modify their preferences selectively—retaining prior consents if they so choose.

4. Renewal: Consent with an expiry period must be proactively renewed. This too must be as simple and affirmative as the original grant, avoiding assumptions or silence as proxies for agreement.

5. Withdrawal: Withdrawal of consent is a legal right under the DPDPA, and the CMS must provide frictionless pathways for exercising it. Upon withdrawal, all associated processing must cease with immediate effect—not just internally, but across all third-party recipients or processors.

III. Beyond Web Forms: Integrating Cookie Consent

A modern CMS must extend its reach into browser-based interactions. Cookie banners, preference centers, and tracking disclosures must be equally subject to the principles of granularity and clarity. Default settings must prioritize privacy: only essential cookies may load prior to user action. Notices must support regional languages and be regularly updated when policies evolve.

IV. The Consent Dashboard: A Digital Control Room

The user-facing dashboard is the CMS’s public conscience. It allows individuals to:

• View the complete history of consent activity;

• Modify or revoke granular preferences in real time;

• Raise data access requests or grievances;

• Track the status of complaints or policy changes.

Export options in human-readable formats (PDF, CSV) ensure transparency and provide legal recourse if needed.

V. Notifications and Real-Time Governance

Every change, whether initiated by the user or the system must trigger alerts. These include reminders for expiring consents, confirmations of withdrawal, alerts to processors, and responses to grievances.

The CMS must ensure:

• Secure, multi-channel delivery (SMS, email, in-app);

• Multi-language support;

• Cryptographically logged audit trails for all notifications.

• 
  

Where responses are not received, escalation protocols must engage supervisory authorities or internal compliance officers.

VI. Resolving Grievances: From Friction to Formality

No CMS is complete without a structured grievance mechanism. Individuals must be able to raise issues regarding:

• Consent misuse,

• Unauthorized data disclosure,

• Delays in fulfilling access or erasure requests.

The system must assign a tracking ID, route the complaint to relevant departments, and update the complainant at every stage. Unresolved issues must auto-escalate to the Data Protection Officer or designated authority within statutory timelines.

VII. Security, Retention, and Audit Trails

Operational integrity rests on stringent back-end controls:

• Role-Based Access: System administration must restrict functionalities by role (e.g., DPO, auditor, admin) and enforce MFA or SSO where required.

• Data Retention Rules: Consent records must be stored securely for predefined durations and deleted cryptographically when expired, except where law mandates retention.

• Immutable Logs: Every consent-related action must be logged with metadata—user ID, action type, timestamp, IP address, and digital hash.

  
  

These logs form the evidentiary foundation for audits, regulatory inquiries, or disputes.

Conclusion

The CMS is not a tool of convenience, it is a constitutional necessity in the digital age. It reconfigures the asymmetry between those who hold data and those from whom it originates. In doing so, it transforms consent from a passive ritual into an active, lived entitlement.

For businesses, this shift demands more than compliance, it calls for a design ethic rooted in dignity, choice, and accountability. A well-architected CMS is not just legally defensible; it is socially responsible and strategically vital in a trust-starved digital economy.