TOWARDS HARMONISATION: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF CONSENT IN INDIA’S DIGITAL PRIVACY LAW AND GLOBAL DATA PROTECTION NORMS

The Indian Digital Personal Data Protection Act. 2023 (DPDP Act), attempts to safeguard data privacy in India using a consent-based approach. Due to the transcendental and global nature of data, digital privacy statutes that conform to existing global standards can ensure ease of compliance and smoother implementation across jurisdictions for relevant stakeholders. This paper inquires into the quality of consent under the 2023 Act and examines how it stands in comparison to digital privacy statutes of other jurisdictions, namely Singapore, Australia, and California. These jurisdictions are chosen for their diverse regulatory frameworks and overlooked nature in Indian comparative literature, with the European Union excluded from its ambit due to a sufficient existing comparative analysis of the GDPR vis-à-vis the Indian DPDP Act. Interestingly, the analysis reveals that certain core tenets are essential to online consent– namely, specific, informed, explicit and unbundled consent, along with the principle of purpose limitation. On the other hand, verifiability, voluntariness, and the time-bound nature of consent present areas of conceptual differences among the examined regimes.