Can business build their own consent management?

India has successfully implemented a consent-driven data transfer framework within the Account Aggregator (AA) ecosystem, processing over 130 million consents and facilitating approximately 89,000 loan disbursements through consent-based data sharing and processing within a regulated infrastructure.

Drawing from this success and addressing gaps identified in international regulations such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA)—which permit organizations to manage consent internally—the Government of India has mandated that consent management be undertaken by an independent third party. This measure is intended to eliminate conflicts of interest and, more importantly, provide data principals with a singular, centralized point of contact for managing their personal data and associated activities.

In this context, the government has underscored that consent management must be conducted by an entity independent of the data fiduciary. At a prima facie level, this requirement could be interpreted as permitting a structurally separate but affiliated entity operating at arm’s length. However, additional considerations—including conflict-of-interest provisions, ownership structures, financial incentives related to data monetization, enforcement of user rights, and other regulatory criteria—may create substantial barriers to approval for consent managers that are established or controlled by data fiduciaries solely to fulfill their own compliance obligations.

Key Conflicts of Interest
1. Shared Ownership and Control - Group companies often share ownership, leadership, or governance structures. A Consent Manager under the same parent entity may face pressure to align with corporate interests rather than user rights.
2. Data Monetization Incentives - If the group profits from data-driven services (e.g., advertising), the Consent Manager may design consent frameworks to maximize data collection, violating the DPDPA’s requirement for specific, informed, and granular consent.
3. Bias in Consent Interface Design - The Consent Manager might deploy dark patterns (e.g., pre-ticked checkboxes, confusing language) to nudge users toward consenting, prioritizing corporate gains over transparency.
4. Inadequate Enforcement of User Rights - The group company may delay or complicate processes for consent withdrawal or data deletion to retain access to valuable data.
5. Lack of Transparency in Data Flows - The Consent Manager might obscure how data is shared within the group, violating the DPDPA’s requirement for clear disclosure of data processing purposes.
6. Conflict in Breach Management - The Consent Manager may downplay or delay reporting breaches to protect the group’s reputation and personal data breach life-cycle management
7. Regulatory Non-Compliance Risks - Internal audits or compliance checks by the group company may lack rigor, leading to systemic DPDPA violations.
8. Shared Data Infrastructure - Group companies often share databases, servers, or cloud infrastructure, leading to commingling of data and blurred boundaries between the Consent Manager and data fiduciaries.
6. Technical checklist and conflicts – Consent Provenance with personal data board or appellate body is responsibility of consent manager and logging, auditing and transparency might be questionable when by intra-group organization. Furthermore, requirements like interoperability and allows data principals to view and manage consents will be limited to intra-body which makes it more like preference centre rather than consent manager.