Airtel sees a problem with the Digital Personal Data Protection Act’s (DPDPA) restrictions on consent managers also being data fiduciaries in themselves, it said last week during the India Mobile Congress 2025 event.
“Now essentially you’re saying that anyone who is in any business can’t enter into the business of a CMP (consent management platform). That restricts a lot of players who probably would have the technology platform [to provide this service], and I can say so for a telco,” Shweta Singh, Head of Regulatory Policy and Strategy at Bharti Airtel, mentioned during a discussion.
She argued that Airtel is currently managing the consent of over a billion users on its network and provides consent management services across many different use cases.
“But currently, the way the law stands, there is a market restriction. So we have written to MeitY (Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology) and we are in discussion with them, but that’s one restriction that we see,” Singh explained.
Importantly, this indicates that Airtel may want to enter the consent management business segment under the DPDPA.
How does consent management work under DPDPA?
Under the Act, consent managers allow users to give, manage or withdraw consent to a company. Also, they are accountable to the users and must register themselves with the Data Protection Board.
Further, as per the draft rules under DPDPA, these consent management service providers have requirements to develop an app or a website for users to access the consent management service, maintain user consent data for a minimum period of seven years, and have privacy and security protections in place.
Besides this, the rules also explicitly require them to avoid conflict of interest with data fiduciaries including with respect to their promoters and key managerial personnel holding a directorship, financial interest, employment, or beneficial ownership in data fiduciaries. They must also not have a “material pecuniary relationship with them”.
In August this year, MeitY chose six entities, including Reliance Jio and IDfy, for its consent management system development challenge. Notably in an interview with MediaNama, IDfy explained that a consent management dashboard would allow users to specify things like they no longer want WhatsApp reach-outs and say that they only want in-app notifications from a certain service provider. Users will also be able to seamlessly check what data a business has on them and what they are using it for.
What consent does a telco manage today?
In June 2023, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) issued a directive mandating that telecom companies have to create a Digital Consent Acquisition (DCA) facility (a unified consent-seeking platform) through which service providers and principal entities (banks, business entities, real estate companies, etc.) can seek customer consent for promotional…
Source link
Disclaimer
We strive to uphold the highest ethical standards in all of our reporting and coverage. We blogs.grocliq.com want to be transparent with our readers about any potential conflicts of interest that may arise in our work. It’s possible that some of the investors we feature may have connections to other businesses, including competitors or companies we write about. However, we want to assure our readers that this will not have any impact on the integrity or impartiality of our reporting. We are committed to delivering accurate, unbiased news and information to our audience, and we will continue to uphold our ethics and principles in all of our work. Thank you for your trust and support.
Website Upgradation is going on for any glitch kindly connect at [email protected]
