Under India's DPDP Act 2023, a consent manager is a mechanism — and in the Act, a registered entity — through which Data Principals can give, manage, review and withdraw consent. In practice, businesses deploy a consent management platform to capture purpose-first consent, serve notices in Indian languages, and keep auditable records.
The consent manager concept
The DPDP Act envisions consent managers as accountable, interoperable points through which individuals manage their consents across Data Fiduciaries. For most organisations, the practical takeaway is that consent must be captured, manageable and withdrawable through a proper platform.
What a consent management platform does
It presents clear, purpose-specific notices, records consent against each purpose, supports withdrawal, scans and gates cookies, routes rights requests, and stores a tamper-proof audit trail — everything you need to prove valid consent.
Why it's effectively mandatory in 2026
Because the Act requires demonstrable, withdrawable, purpose-wise consent, manual methods simply can't keep up or stand up in an audit. A consent management platform is the only practical way to comply at scale.
FAQ
The DPDP Act requires valid, withdrawable, purpose-wise consent supported by notice. In practice this makes a consent management platform essential for compliance, even where a registered consent-manager entity isn't used.