The DPDP Act Rules Explained: What Indian Organisations Overlook but Must Understand

Introduction

India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act has introduced a new level of responsibility for organisations that handle personal information. While many businesses understand the basic concept of DPDP, several important rules are often misunderstood or simply overlooked. These gaps are where compliance breaks down in practice.

This article explains the key DPDP rules in a clear and structured way, focusing on the areas organisations commonly miss. It also highlights why visibility and sensitive data discovery play a critical role in fulfilling these requirements.

1. Purpose Based Collection

The DPDP Act requires personal data to be collected for a clear and lawful purpose. This appears simple, yet it is one of the most frequently misapplied rules.

Many organisations collect data without a defined need or reuse information internally without checking whether the original purpose allows it. DPDP expects the purpose to guide how data is collected, stored, used, and deleted. If the purpose changes, individuals must be informed and must agree to the new use.

Purpose is not a formality. It is the legal foundation of every processing activity.

2. Storage Limitation

Indian organisations tend to store personal data indefinitely because it feels convenient. DPDP challenges this by requiring companies to delete data once it is no longer needed.

To follow this rule, organisations must determine how long each category of data should remain and must regularly review whether the purpose still exists. Keeping data simply because storage is available increases both exposure and compliance risk.

Storage limitation promotes safety by ensuring that only meaningful and necessary information stays within systems.

3. Data Accuracy

DPDP requires that personal information remain accurate and updated. This becomes complicated when the same data appears across multiple platforms.

A user may update their details in one system, while older versions remain in emails, exports, or shared folders. When accuracy is inconsistent, compliance becomes incomplete.

True accuracy is only possible when organisations have full visibility into where personal data is stored, duplicated, and shared.

4. Security Safeguards

DPDP expects organisations to protect personal data across all environments, not just primary systems.

Personal information often appears in shared drives, emails, laptops, backups, collaborative tools, and older exports. These locations frequently go unnoticed, yet they carry high risk. Breaches often originate from such overlooked areas rather than official systems.

Security becomes meaningful only when it covers every place where personal data exists.

5. Breach Reporting

The DPDP Act requires timely reporting of data breaches to the Data Protection Board and affected individuals. Organisations can only do this when they clearly understand where sensitive data is stored.

When data is scattered across unmonitored locations, incidents remain undetected or unclear. This slows down the reporting process and creates compliance gaps.

Breach reporting relies on awareness. Without visibility, timely action becomes difficult.

6. User Rights

Users have the right to access, correct, and request deletion of their personal information. Organisations must honour these rights completely, not partially.

If personal data exists in multiple versions or older files remain undeleted, user requests cannot be fulfilled accurately. Updating one system while leaving outdated information in others does not meet DPDP requirements.

To respect user rights, organisations must know where every copy of personal data is stored.

7. Accountability for All Data

DPDP holds organisations responsible for personal data across every environment, not just official platforms.

Accountability includes forgotten folders, unmanaged laptops, exported spreadsheets, old backups, and shared spaces used during daily operations. Organisations must be able to demonstrate awareness of their entire data landscape.

Without complete visibility across systems, accountability remains incomplete.

8. The EzSecure Perspective: Why Data Discovery Supports DPDP Compliance

A core expectation of the DPDP Act is understanding where personal and sensitive data exists within the organisation. Without this visibility, every rule of the DPDP Act becomes more difficult to follow.

EzSecure focuses on addressing this challenge. Its sensitive data discovery capabilities help identify where personal and sensitive information resides across cloud drives, local devices, shared folders, databases, exports, archives, and collaborative platforms.

This clarity allows organisations to remove unnecessary files, secure exposed locations, maintain accuracy, fulfil user rights, and respond effectively during incidents.EzSecure does not replace compliance efforts. It strengthens them by providing the visibility required to apply DPDP rules confidently and responsibly.

Conclusion

The DPDP Act introduces essential rules that define how Indian organisations should collect, store, use, and protect p

ersonal information. While the written rules seem straightforward, they often become challenging when data is scattered across multiple platforms and teams lack visibility.

Purpose, retention, accuracy, security, user rights, and accountability all depend on one fundamental requirement. Organisations must understand where their data exists before they can protect it.

Compliance begins with discovery. Risk begins when organisations do not understand the full extent of the data they hold.Companies that recognise the deeper rules of the DPDP Act and commit to full data visibility will be better prepared for audits, stronger in security, and more trustworthy in India’s digital future.