India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (DPDPA) is one of the most significant shifts the region has seen in how organisations are expected to handle personal data. Yet in many enterprises, the discussion is still confined to legal or policy teams.

That's a missed opportunity.

DPDPA is not just a box-ticking exercise for compliance. It's a business and operational shift that will change how you manage employees and customers, scale in India, and build digital trust.

The organisations that get ahead won't just "comply." They'll rethink how they control and prove access to personal data - starting with identity.

From data protection to access accountability

Across the Act and the emerging rules, the direction of travel is clear:
you are accountable for who can access which personal data, under what conditions, and with what proof.

That applies whether you are:

• An India-based organisation processing personal data locally, or
• A global business serving individuals in India and processing their data elsewhere

And it extends across your entire ecosystem:

• Internal workforce and third-party contractors
• Partners, outsourcers, and shared services
• Cloud, SaaS, and identity providers in your processing chain

Accountability needs more than policy. It requires real-time enforcement at the moment of access where identity becomes the control plane for who gets access, under what conditions, and why. That's exactly where identity and access management (IAM) shows up as a DPDPA control surface - not just an IT utility.

Where most organisations are exposed

In our work with large, regulated enterprises, the biggest gaps rarely sit in where data is stored. They sit in how access is governed day to day:

• Too many users with broad or unnecessary access to applications holding personal data
• Inconsistent authentication methods and step-up policies across systems and regions
• Limited visibility into who accessed what personal data, when, and under which policy
• Fragmented ownership between global security, India operations, and business teams
• Identity sprawl across SaaS, cloud, and legacy platforms

Under DPDPA, those gaps quickly become regulatory, security, and reputational risks - especially when you must explain access decisions to a regulator, auditor, or data principal.

Without a clear identity strategy, they're also very hard to fix.

Why identity is now central to DPDPA programmes

IAM is no longer hygiene.. Under DPDPA and similar laws, it becomes a primary way Data Fiduciaries enforce and demonstrate compliance obligations in practice.

A strong identity foundation lets you:

• Control who can access personal data based on role, attributes, risk, and context
• Apply consistent authentication and authorisation policies across clouds, apps, and regions
• Give data principals usable ways to see, correct, or request erasure of their data via secure self-service journeys
• Prove accountability with audit trails that show who accessed what, when, and under which policy decision
• Evolve controls as the DPDP Rules and enforcement practices mature, without re-architecting every system
• Put simply: If you can't control and evidence access, you can't confidently run a DPDPA programme. Identity is where that control actually happens.

Six moves leading organisations are making now

Forward-looking organisations are using DPDPA as a catalyst to strengthen identity. We consistently see six focus areas.

1. Tighten control over access

The goal is intentional, least-privilege access to systems that process personal data:

• Standardise role- and attribute-based access across applications and APIs
• Use context (device, location, risk signals) to adapt access in real time
• Run regular access reviews and certification campaigns for sensitive systems

For many, the fastest path is to start with workforce and third-party access, where DPDPA exposure is immediate and ownership is clearer than in complex customer journeys.

2. Strengthen authentication

Static passwords alone don't stand up well to phishing, credential stuffing, or modern fraud.

Organisations are:

• Rolling out phishing-resistant MFA and passwordless options such as FIDO2/webauthn where possible
• Using risk-based and adaptive authentication to step up only when needed
• Aligning workforce and customer journeys so users get both security and usability

3. Improve visibility and auditability

DPDPA expects "reasonable security safeguards" and the ability to respond to and investigate incidents, including notifying the Data Protection Board and affected individuals after a personal data breach.

Identity is a powerful lens for this:

• Central logs of who authenticated, what they accessed, and which policy allowed it
• Tamper-evident audit trails suitable for internal and third‑party audits
• Dashboards and reports to support breach investigations and regulatory inquiries

4. Align global and India operations

DPDPA applies to processing in India and can apply extra-territorially where you offer goods or services to people in India—even if systems or vendors sit elsewhere.

Leading organisations are:

• Defining global identity policies that explicitly account for India obligations
• Deciding where personal data will be stored and processed, and how access from outside India is governed
• Preparing for potential future transfer restrictions while avoiding premature, irreversible localisation bets

The result is one coherent access model instead of ad-hoc, country-by-country exceptions.

5. Give users meaningful control of their personal data

DPDPA formalises rights for data principals—such as the ability to access, correct, and erase their personal data, and to seek grievance redressal—and expects clear notices and consent practices.

Identity platforms can operationalise this by enabling:

• Clear, itemised notices and consent flows embedded directly into workforce and customer journeys
• Self-service portals where users can see profile data, update key attributes, and trigger erasure workflows that cascade into downstream systems
• Delegation patterns (e.g., nominees, parents/guardians) where someone acts on behalf of a data principal when allowed by law

While some of these capabilities go beyond DPDPA's minimum requirements, they align with global privacy expectations and can become a differentiator in customer and employee trust.

6. Choose partners that treat identity as a compliance control

Finally, organisations are scrutinising technology partners not just for features, but for:

• A clear understanding of DPDPA-style regulatory expectations
• Transparency about roles (Data Fiduciary vs Data Processor), data flows, and subprocessors
• Security and privacy programmes that map to principles like lawful processing, purpose limitation, data minimisation, and storage limitation

In other words, identity vendors must help you enforce and prove accountability - not simply add another identity silo.

Ping Identity's standpoint on DPDPA compliance

At Ping Identity, we see DPDPA as further evidence of a global pattern: identity is becoming the enforceable trust control for modern data protection laws.

Our position is straightforward:

• Our customers remain the Data Fiduciaries. You determine the purposes and means of processing; Ping typically operates as a Data Processor providing IAM services on your behalf.
• We do not "certify" customers as DPDPA compliant and cannot guarantee compliance. Instead, we provide identity and access capabilities that support your broader compliance programme.
• We focus on access accountability, not aggregating personal data. Ping is designed to enforce access without becoming a central repository of all personal data, helping reduce exposure, duplication, and unnecessary data movement.
• We support multiple deployment models—from self-managed software (including Ping Advanced Identity Software and Ping Identity Software) to PingOne Advanced Identity Cloud, a dedicated tenant SaaS, and PingOne, our multi-tenant SaaS—so you can align identity with your data residency and processing choices.
• Our global privacy and security programme is built to align with DPDPA and other major privacy frameworks, including strong encryption, access controls, logging and monitoring, and incident response processes.

Concretely, Ping can help Data Fiduciaries:

• Enforce strong SSO, MFA, and adaptive access for systems that handle personal data
• Implement Role-Based Access Control (RBAC)/Attribute-Based Access Control (ABAC) policies and just-in-time access for sensitive applications and APIs
• Build consent-aware journeys and self-service experiences for access, correction, and erasure requests
• Maintain centralised policy enforcement and auditable logs across hybrid and multi-cloud environments

We believe that without a robust identity layer, you cannot meaningfully operationalise DPDPA.

Turning DPDPA into a trust advantage

It's easy to view DPDPA purely as a regulatory hurdle. The more strategic view is to treat it as a chance to:

• Strengthen customer and employee trust
• Modernise legacy identity and access architectures
• Enable safer, more scalable growth in India and beyond

That starts with a simple, hard question:

Can you clearly show who can access which personal data across your organisation under which conditions, and with what proof?

If the answer is "not yet," identity is the right place to start.