India DPDP Act 2023·Control DS-008·high·Component: Data Subject Rights

What this control requires

Implement a nomination facility enabling data principals to designate a nominee who can exercise their data rights in the event of death or incapacity. The mechanism must: (i) be accessible in account settings; (ii) record and store nominee details securely; (iii) include identity verification of nominee at time of rights exercise; (iv) maintain a nomination register. Objective: Enable data principals to exercise their right to nominate and ensure the organisation can honour this right upon the data principal's death or incapacity.
— India DPDP Act 2023, Control DS-008

In plain English

Implement a nomination facility enabling data principals to designate a nominee who can exercise their data rights in the event of death or incapacity. In practice, this means you can prove you maintain data principal nomination mechanism-level controls on a defined cadence.

Why it matters

Penalties under the DPDP Act reach ₹250 crore per instance of significant non-compliance, and the Act applies extra-territorially to any entity processing personal data of individuals in India in connection with offering goods or services.

This control is rated high. Auditors expect a named owner, a remediation SLA, and a tooling artefact that evidences continuous operation.

What an auditor looks for

Indian DPAs and statutory auditors will look for: documented consent capture and revocation flows, a designated Data Protection Officer (for Significant Data Fiduciaries), breach-notification workflows tied to Data Protection Board notification timelines, and Records of Processing that match the consent notice the user saw.

Within Data Subject Rights, the assessor will trace your implementation back to the catalogue reference (Control DS-008) and look for objective evidence on the latest two assessment cycles.

How to implement

Policy Management

Docs. Keep each policy in version-controlled Markdown alongside the code that implements it; ship a signed PDF snapshot at each annual review and link the SHA into the SoA.

Operational checklist

  • Maintain. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
  • Implement. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
  • Ensure. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
  • Scope: data principal nomination mechanism.

Evidence to collect

  • Ticketing Workflow. ticketing_workflow evidence
  • Policy Document. A signed and version-controlled policy / standard / procedure document.

Signed policies, procedures, and registers document the safeguard. Service management or grievance ticketing records prove timely handling. Focus: Data Principal Nomination Mechanism.

Common pitfalls

  • Policies that no engineer has read; the version in Confluence drifts from the version that's actually being enforced.

How it maps to other frameworks

Computed from shared tags, control component and key-operation subjects — handy when you are reconciling controls across an audit.

Related controls in India DPDP Act 2023

References

Topics: data protectiongovernance riskprivacy managementpolicy management