DPDP for real estate, brokers, property portals and housing societies

Property is a business of contacts. Sales funnels, rental leads, portal enquiries and society gates all run on names, phone numbers, flat numbers, ID copies, faces and movements, often collected on WhatsApp and paper registers and kept for years because nobody owns them.

The risk is not exotic. It is a lead list sold to ten channel partners, a visitor app that knows when every flat is empty, CCTV footage forwarded to a residents’ group, and a cupboard of photocopied Aadhaar cards belonging to cooks, drivers and tenants. Under the DPDP Act an RWA or a housing society is a Data Fiduciary like any company, because the Act’s definition of “person” includes an association of persons (section 2(s)). This guide applies the Data Fiduciary playbook to real estate and residential communities.

Are you a Data Fiduciary, a processor, or both?

• Developer (promoter): you are the Data Fiduciary for enquiries, site visits, bookings, allottee files and handover records. Your CRM vendor, call centre, digital agency and cloud host are your Data Processors. Channel partners are usually separate Data Fiduciaries for leads they source, and your processors only for leads you hand them under a contract.
• Broker or channel partner: you are a Data Fiduciary for the people who come to you. The Act’s own example (section 7(a), illustration II) is a real estate broker: a person messages a broker asking for help finding a flat on rent and shares her details; the broker may use them to find and tell her about suitable flats, and must stop once she says she no longer needs help. That one illustration is your operating model.
• Property portal or rental platform: you are a Data Fiduciary for seekers, owners and listing agents. Passing a seeker’s number to an owner, broker or developer is a disclosure to another fiduciary; the seeker must know which category of recipient will call, and agree.
• RWA, co-operative housing society or apartment association: you are the Data Fiduciary for member registers, tenants, billing, gate logs, CCTV, staff you employ, and domestic-help and vendor passes. A resident keeping her own cook’s number for household use is outside the Act (section 3(c)(i)). A society building a register of every cook in the complex is not.
• Facility management company or security agency: where you run the gate, helpdesk or CCTV room, you are usually the society’s or developer’s Data Processor, and a fiduciary for your own employees.
• Visitor management app provider: you are the society’s processor for gate logs. If you also run a services marketplace, show ads or analyse movement across societies for yourself, you are a Data Fiduciary for that use and need your own ground. See the guide for SaaS and IT processors.

The data you hold

Data category	Where it usually lives	Typical purpose	Sensitivity	Typical retention
Enquiry and lead data (name, mobile, email, budget, location preference)	Portal forms, CRM, call-centre logs, broker WhatsApp, spreadsheets	Responding to an enquiry, site visits	Medium	Until the person stops engaging or asks you to stop
Site-visit records, photos at the sales office	Sales office tablet, CRM, CCTV	Sales follow-up, channel-partner attribution	Medium	Short; the attribution period in your partner terms
Booking and allotment files (PAN, address proof, income details, co-applicants)	Sales back office, document management, shared drives	Allotment, agreement for sale, registration	High (financial and identity)	For the life of the project and as tax, RERA and registration law requires
Home-loan documents shared with lenders	Loan desk, email, lender portals	Tie-up loan processing	High	Until disbursement; the lender keeps its own copy
Owner and tenant records, rent agreements	Broker files, portal, society office	Leasing, rent collection, society records	High	Lease term plus the period law or the society’s bye-laws require
Tenant and domestic-help police verification forms	Society office, broker files, police portal printouts	Submission to police where required	High (ID numbers, photos, family details)	Until submitted and acknowledged; keep only the acknowledgement
Member and resident registers, flat ownership, nominees	Society software, registers, accountant’s files	Membership, maintenance billing, general body meetings	Medium to high	As the co-operative or apartment ownership law requires
Maintenance dues, defaulter status, payment details	Billing software, UPI collections, bank statements	Billing, recovery	High (financial, reputational)	Accounting and tax law minimums
Visitor and gate logs (name, phone, photo, vehicle number, flat visited, time)	Visitor management app, paper register at the gate	Entry control, security	High in aggregate (shows who visits whom and when flats are empty)	Short; months, not years
CCTV footage	NVR/DVR in the security cabin, cloud video service	Security, incident investigation	High (faces, movements, children)	Short rolling period, longer only for an incident
Domestic-help, driver and vendor passes (photo, ID, flats served)	Visitor app, society office	Entry control	High (low-income workers, ID numbers)	While the pass is active, then short
Staff records (guards, housekeeping, society office staff)	Society office, security agency, facility manager	Employment, payroll, PF/ESI	High	As labour and tax law requires
Children’s data (names, photos, exit alerts, clubhouse and pool registrations)	Visitor app, clubhouse register	Safety, amenity booking	High	Minimum; see section 9
Society WhatsApp and Telegram groups	Members’ phones, admin exports	Notices, community discussion	Medium to high (what people post)	Uncontrolled unless you set rules

Risk hotspots

1. Lead lists bought, sold and shared. Portals sell the same enquiry to several brokers, developers buy “HNI lists”, and channel partners trade spreadsheets. Failure: every call from a list the person never agreed to is processing without a ground, and the person can complain to the Board. Control: collect leads only from your own forms and partners with documented consent, record the source of every lead, and never buy lists.
2. Leads that never die. A person who enquired about a 2BHK in 2022 still gets weekly calls. Section 7(a) covers a broker’s follow-up only while the person wants help. Failure: processing after the purpose has ended, against section 8(7). Control: a lead expiry rule (for example, no contact after 90 days of silence without fresh consent), and an instant “stop” honoured by the CRM, the call centre and every channel partner.
3. Visitor management apps that know too much. Gate apps record who visits each flat, when residents leave and return, and domestic-help attendance. Failure: the society cannot say who at the vendor sees this, how long it is kept, or whether it feeds ads. Control: a processor contract, a retention period, admin access for named committee members only, and a written bar on the vendor using society data for itself.
4. CCTV everywhere, kept forever. Cameras pointed at flat entrances, footage on personal phones, clips forwarded to residents’ groups. Failure: an unauthorised disclosure is a personal data breach (section 2(u)). Control: a CCTV policy covering placement, viewing rights, rolling retention and a log of every export; footage goes only to the committee and the police.
5. Aadhaar photocopies for domestic help and tenants. Societies demand a full Aadhaar copy, photo and home address from every cook, maid and driver, and file them in the office. Failure: a cupboard of identity documents with no access control. Control: masked Aadhaar or DigiLocker, collect only what the police form asks for, submit it, and keep only the acknowledgement.
6. Tenant police verification done badly. Brokers and societies collect tenant IDs, photos and family details “for police verification” and keep them. Control: the landlord files the verification where local police require it; the broker or society helps as the landlord’s processor, uses the official channel, and erases its copy after the acknowledgement.
7. Society WhatsApp groups. Defaulter lists with names and amounts, visitor-log screenshots, CCTV clips of “suspicious” people. Failure: disclosure without a ground, and a breach the committee may not recognise as one. Control: committee-adopted group rules, an admin-only announcements group, and dues reminders sent one to one.
8. Booking files on shared drives. PAN, income proofs and co-applicant details sit in inboxes and with every salesperson on the deal. Failure: a resigning salesperson walks out with the buyer list. Control: one repository with role-based access, no personal-device downloads, access logs kept a year (rule 6(1)(e)), and same-day offboarding.
9. Sharing buyer data with lenders and partners. Allottee lists go to “preferred partners” for loans, interiors and insurance. Control: a separate opt-in per partner category after booking, never a condition of allotment.
10. Children tracked at the gate. Exit alerts, clubhouse registers and gate photos of children. Failure: behavioural monitoring of children is barred (section 9(3)), and processing a child’s data generally needs verifiable parental consent (section 9(1)). Control: real-time safety alerts only, no movement history, and the parent’s verifiable consent for anything more.

Legal basis, purpose by purpose

Purpose	Basis	Notes
Responding to a property enquiry, arranging a site visit	7(a)	The broker illustration under section 7(a). Stop when the person says she no longer needs help.
Follow-up calls after the enquiry goes cold	Consent	Once the original request has lapsed, further marketing needs a clear yes. Also follow TRAI’s rules for commercial calls and SMS.
Passing a seeker’s contact to owners, brokers or developers on a portal	7(a) if the person clicked to contact that specific listing; consent for anything wider	“Get calls from similar projects” or “share with partner brokers” is a separate opt-in.
Booking, allotment, agreement for sale, registration	7(a), and retention required by law	RERA, stamp duty, registration and tax laws decide what you must keep.
Home-loan tie-ups, interiors, insurance and other partner offers	Consent per partner category	The lender collects its own consent for the loan itself.
Membership register, maintenance billing, general body notices	7(a), and retention required by law	Co-operative societies and apartment ownership laws require registers and accounts.
Recovery of maintenance dues	7(a) for reminders; 17(1)(a) when you enforce the claim	17(1)(a) covers enforcing a legal right; it does not cover posting defaulter names in groups.
Visitor entry and gate logs	7(a)	The visitor gives details to enter for a stated purpose. Say what you log and for how long, at the gate.
CCTV for security in common areas	Unsettled: a clear notice at every camera, a narrow security purpose, and a documented basis (some rely on 17(1)(c) for prevention of offences; that is a stretch for routine recording)	Document the purpose and placement. Monitoring staff performance or residents’ habits is a different purpose. Confirm the position for your set-up with counsel.
Sharing footage or logs with the police	7(d) where a law requires disclosure; 17(1)(c) for an investigation	Take written requests. Section 11(2) means you need not list such sharing in an access reply.
Tenant and domestic-help police verification	7(d) for the landlord or employer where local police orders require it; otherwise consent	The society or broker acts for the landlord. Collect only what the form requires.
Society staff employed directly (guards, office staff)	7(i)	Staff supplied by an agency are the agency’s employees; you receive their data as its client.
Child exit alerts to parents	Fourth Schedule Part B item 4 (real-time location of a child for her safety)	Real-time alerts only, no stored movement history or profiling. Anything else needs verifiable parental consent (rule 10).
Clubhouse, pool and event registrations for children	Consent of the parent	Verifiable consent under section 9(1) and rule 10; no targeted advertising to children.

Notices and consent: getting the screens right

Channel	Do	Don’t
Portal and website enquiry forms	Show who will receive the enquiry (owner, broker, developer) and offer “share with similar projects” as a separate unticked option.	Send one enquiry to every advertiser in the city by default.
Sales office and site visits	Use a tablet or QR sign-in with a short notice; ask marketing consent separately.	Photograph visitors or their ID without a stated purpose.
Broker WhatsApp and calls	Confirm the person’s requirement in writing, say how long you will keep looking, and stop when told.	Add enquirers to broadcast lists for unrelated projects.
Booking forms (paper and digital)	Itemise documents and why each is needed; list partner offers as separate opt-ins after booking.	Make the allotment depend on agreeing to loan, interiors or insurance calls.
Society gate and visitor app	Put a notice at the gate and in the app: what is logged, why, for how long, and whom to contact.	Photograph every visitor and keep the photos indefinitely.
CCTV	Post visible signs with the purpose and the contact person; publish the policy to members.	Point cameras into flats, windows or changing areas.
Domestic-help and tenant forms	Explain why each field is needed and who will see it; accept masked Aadhaar.	Ask for a full Aadhaar copy, bank details or family photos “for records”.
Society WhatsApp groups	Publish group rules in the group description and in the member handbook.	Post defaulter lists, visitor logs or CCTV clips.
Existing members, residents and leads	Send a section 5(2) notice by email, the society app or a circular, with a link to manage choices.	Assume old forms and bye-laws cover new purposes.

Each notice must be readable on its own, itemise the data and the purposes, and say how to withdraw consent, exercise rights and complain to the Board (rule 3). Offer it in English and any Eighth Schedule language (section 5(3)): Marathi and Hindi for a Pune society, Kannada for a Bengaluru broker, and read aloud for guards and domestic help.

Other laws you must line up with

• RERA (Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016) and state RERA rules: promoters and registered agents must keep and disclose records about projects and allottees. Data the RERA authority publishes under a legal duty may fall outside the DPDP Act (section 3(c)(ii)(B)), but that does not cover data you scrape from it and combine with your own lead lists. Confirm the current requirement with counsel.
• State co-operative societies acts and apartment ownership acts: registers of members, nominees and accounts, and members’ rights to inspect certain records. Line up member inspection rights with what you disclose about other members.
• State rent laws and the Model Tenancy Act framework where adopted: rent agreements and tenancy records held by landlords and rent authorities.
• Police orders on tenant and domestic-help verification: many city police require landlords to report tenant details. The requirement and the form vary by city. Confirm the current requirement with counsel.
• Registration Act and stamp laws: registered documents carry buyers’ and sellers’ personal data.
• PSARA (Private Security Agencies (Regulation) Act, 2005): guards’ verification records belong to the security agency.
• Labour codes, Shops & Establishments Acts, PF and ESI: records of staff the society or facility manager employs.
• Income-tax Act and GST: TDS on property and rent, and maintenance invoices, set minimum retention for financial records.
• TRAI TCCCPR: registration, headers and consent rules for promotional calls and SMS by developers, brokers and portals.
• IT Act, 2000 and CERT-In Directions (2022): cyber incidents at portals and larger developers may need to be reported to CERT-In on a shorter clock than the DPDP 72 hours. Confirm the current requirement with counsel.

Retention and erasure

1. When the purpose ends (section 8(7)): an enquiry is dropped, a sale completes, a tenant moves out, or domestic help stops working in the complex. Stop using the data and erase it, unless a law requires you to keep it.
2. The one-year minimum (rule 8(3)): keep the personal data, traffic data and logs of the processing for at least one year from the date of processing, for the Seventh Schedule purposes, then erase them unless another law requires more. Gate and CRM logs fall here. Keep them restricted that year, not in use.
3. Legal holds: allottee files, registered documents, accounts and staff records have their own minimums. Hold the specific records, not the whole person, and say what you kept and why.
4. CCTV: set a short rolling overwrite period; keep clips only for a reported incident or a written police request. Confirm with counsel how rule 8(3) applies to your footage.
5. Third Schedule: the three-year inactivity rule does not apply to brokers, developers or societies. A portal is covered only if it is an e-commerce entity with 2 crore or more registered users in India; then it must erase three years after the user last engaged, with a 48-hour warning (rule 8(2)), excluding data needed for account access and virtual tokens.
6. Processors: make the visitor app vendor, facility manager, security agency, CRM and call centre erase on your instruction (section 8(7)(b)) and confirm in writing.
7. Backups and phones: document backup periods, replay erasures after a restore, and clear guards’ phones, sales tablets and committee members’ phones.

Rights requests and grievances

• Channels: for developers and portals, a web form, an email address and the app; for societies, the society app, the office and an email address. Publish them and the identifier you need: a mobile number, an enquiry ID, a booking number, or a flat number (rule 14(1)).
• Identity: use an OTP to the registered mobile, or verify in person at the society office. Do not ask a tenant or a cook for ID documents you do not already hold.
• Access (section 11): give a summary of what you hold and how you use it, and list the other fiduciaries and processors you shared it with: channel partners, lenders, the visitor app vendor, the facility manager, the security agency. Sharing with the police on a written request for an investigation is excluded (section 11(2)).
• Correction (section 12(2)): correct ownership, nominee and contact details promptly; defaulter status and tenancy records drive decisions about people (section 8(3)).
• Erasure (section 12(3)): delete leads and marketing data on request and tell channel partners to do the same. Refuse erasure of allottee files, registers and accounts the law requires you to keep, and say so. A former tenant can ask the society to erase her gate pass and photos.
• Grievances: publish a response period within the rule 14(3) ceiling of 90 days; 15–30 days is good practice. Give one owner, not a committee.
• Contact person (rule 9): publish the contact who answers data questions, usually the secretary for a society, and mention it in every reply.
• Nomination (section 14): let members and buyers nominate someone to exercise their DPDP rights. This is separate from the flat nominee under co-operative society law.

Breach readiness

Likely scenarios:

• a lead or booking list leaked or sold by a former employee or channel partner
• the visitor management app vendor compromised, exposing gate logs across many societies
• CCTV footage or a defaulter list forwarded beyond the committee
• a stolen guard phone or sales tablet with app access
• a portal’s contact-reveal feature scraped by bots
• a cupboard of domestic-help ID copies lost or photographed

Run-book:

1. Contain within hours: revoke app and CRM access, reset passwords, delete forwarded material where you can, and ask the group admin to remove posts.
2. Assess: which data, how many people, and the consequences: fraud using ID copies, physical safety where addresses and absence patterns leaked, harassment of domestic workers.
3. Notify affected people without delay through their app account or registered contact, covering every point in rule 7(1): a description of the breach (what, how much, when), the likely consequences for them, what you are doing about it, what they should do (for example, watch for fake “society office” calls), and a contact who can answer.
4. Notify the Board without delay, then send the detailed report within 72 hours (rule 7(2)).
5. Report to CERT-In where its directions apply, and to the police where a crime is involved.
6. Learn: fix the root cause, update the vendor or partner contract, and tell the general body what changed.

The checklist

Phase 1: discover (days 0–30)

• [Leadership] Name one person who owns DPDP: a sales operations head for a developer, the founder for a brokerage, the secretary or a committee member for a society.
• [Society committee] Pass a resolution adopting a data protection policy and naming the contact person.
• [Ops] List every lead source: portals, campaigns, site visits, channel partners, walk-ins, WhatsApp.
• [Ops] Find every lead spreadsheet on laptops, shared drives and phones, and record who holds it.
• [Legal] Collect all channel-partner, portal, CRM, call-centre and agency agreements.
• [Society committee] List what the visitor management app collects: residents, visitors, staff, vehicles, photos, children.
• [Society committee] Map every CCTV camera, its field of view, where footage is stored and who can view or export it.
• [Society committee] Count the ID copies held for domestic help, tenants, vendors and staff, and where they are kept.
• [Ops] List every society or project WhatsApp group, its admins and what gets posted.
• [Legal] Note what RERA, the co-operative or apartment law, tax law and local police orders require you to keep.
• [Ops] Identify where children’s data appears: gate alerts, clubhouse, events, school bus logs.

Phase 2: design and build (days 31–90)

• [Legal] Assign a legal basis to each purpose using the table above, and stop purposes without one.
• [Legal] Write short notices for enquiry forms, site visits, booking, the gate, CCTV, domestic-help passes and tenant forms.
• [Ops] Translate notices into English, Hindi and the main local language; prepare spoken versions for guards and domestic help.
• [Product] Rebuild portal enquiry forms so sharing beyond the chosen listing is a separate, unticked opt-in.
• [Product] Mask seekers’ and owners’ phone numbers on portals; reveal only after the person agrees, and rate-limit reveals.
• [Ops] Tag every lead with its source and consent status in the CRM; delete leads without either.
• [Ops] Set a lead expiry rule and build a “stop contacting me” flag that syncs to channel partners and the call centre.
• [Legal] Rewrite channel-partner terms: leads you hand over only for that project, no resale, erasure on instruction, breach notice to you.
• [Legal] Sign a processor contract with the visitor app vendor: your purposes only, no ads or cross-society analytics, retention limits, breach notice, erasure, one-year logs, audit.
• [Legal] Add the same terms to facility management and security agency contracts.
• [Society committee] Adopt a CCTV policy: no cameras into flats or private spaces, a rolling retention period, export only with a logged reason.
• [Security] Move CCTV viewing to named accounts with passwords; disable phone apps for anyone not on the list.
• [Society committee] Switch domestic-help and tenant checks to masked Aadhaar or DigiLocker; shred existing full copies once the police acknowledgement is filed.
• [Society committee] Set retention periods: gate logs, visitor photos, staff passes after they leave, tenant records after move-out.
• [Society committee] Adopt WhatsApp group rules: no dues, defaulter names, visitor logs or CCTV clips in groups.
• [Finance] Send dues reminders one to one through the billing app, email or SMS, never in groups.
• [Eng] Put booking files in one repository with role-based access, no personal-device downloads, and access logs kept for one year.
• [Ops] Add separate opt-ins after booking for loan, interiors and insurance partners, and share only with people who opted in.
• [Marketing] Register headers and templates under TRAI rules, and check consent before every campaign.
• [Product] Limit child gate alerts to real-time notifications to the parent, with no stored movement history.
• [Ops] Collect verifiable parental consent for clubhouse, pool and event registrations of children.
• [Legal] Publish the privacy page or society notice: contact person, request channels, identifier needed, grievance period.
• [Ops] Set up a rights and grievance register with owners and deadlines.
• [Ops] Send the section 5(2) notice to existing residents, buyers and active leads.

Phase 3: operate (ongoing)

• [Society committee] Review the CCTV export log and viewer list every quarter.
• [Society committee] Remove passes for staff and domestic help who have left, every month.
• [Ops] Purge expired leads every month and confirm channel partners did the same.
• [Legal] Check new channel partners, portals and vendors before sharing any data.
• [Security] Revoke CRM, app and CCTV access on the day a salesperson, guard or committee member leaves.
• [Society committee] Hand over data, passwords and the policy formally when the committee changes after elections.
• [Ops] Review rights and grievance timelines every month.
• [Security] Run a breach drill once a year, for example a leaked visitor-app export, against the 72-hour clock.
• [Ops] Train sales staff, brokers, guards and helpdesk staff every year on what they may share and with whom.
• [DPO] Keep evidence: consent records, notices, erasure confirmations from vendors and partners, police request letters.
• [Society committee] Report data protection steps to the general body every year.

Where myconsentapp comes in

You need to	With myconsentapp	You still own
Separate enquiry follow-up from marketing and partner sharing	Define purposes (enquiry response, project updates, partner offers, loan tie-ups) once, each tagged consent or legitimate use. The hosted consent page or widget shows each consent purpose as a separate toggle, off by default.	Choosing when to ask in your sales journey.
Capture consent at the sales office, gate or society office	Show a QR code for the hosted page on a standee, or record consent captured on paper or at a counter, marked as not verified by the person.	Keeping the paper form if you use one.
Prove a lead agreed to be called	Every choice is signed and hash-chained against the exact notice version, with a receipt the person can keep and an evidence pack you can download.	Recording the lead source in your CRM.
Stop calls when someone says stop	Call the verify API before each campaign or callback; it returns not permitted immediately after a withdrawal. Signed webhooks tell your CRM and dialler, and acknowledgements flag withdrawals not acted on in time.	Wiring the check into your CRM and call centre.
Make channel partners, the visitor app vendor and the facility manager stop and erase	A processor registry links each to purposes and data items, records contract dates and flags expiry, and sends them webhooks. They confirm withdrawals and erasures; erasure stays open until they do or you record an override.	Signing the contracts and choosing the vendors.
Publish notices residents, guards and domestic help can read	Versioned notices in English and all 22 Eighth Schedule languages, with machine-translation drafts flagged for review; rights, withdrawal and Board-complaint text and your contacts are added automatically.	Reviewing translations and reading notices aloud where needed.
Keep data only as long as needed	Set retention days per purpose; the retention job ends access and alerts you and linked processors. Retention obligations (legal holds for allottee files or accounts) appear in the notice.	Deleting records in your own systems and registers.
Answer residents, buyers and tenants	A rights inbox for access, correction, erasure and grievances, with SLA timers; erasure closes with a structured proof. Nomination and nominee claims are supported.	The answers and the decisions on what the law requires you to keep.
Handle children at the clubhouse or pool	An age gate and guardian verification through DigiLocker; tracking and ad purposes can never be marked child-safe.	Deciding which activities involve children.
Handle a leak	A breach register with the 72-hour clock, Rule 7 notices to affected people in English and Hindi, and Board intimation and report documents.	Detecting, containing and investigating.

Not included: myconsentapp does not run your gate or CCTV, find lead spreadsheets on your laptops, or give legal advice. It is a proposed Consent Manager that works alongside your CRM and visitor app through its API and webhooks.

Common mistakes

• Thinking an RWA or society is too small or too informal to be covered. An association of persons is a Data Fiduciary.
• Buying “verified buyer” lists and assuming the seller got consent.
• Keeping cold leads forever and calling them every quarter.
• Collecting full Aadhaar photocopies from every cook, maid and driver and storing them in an unlocked cupboard.
• Posting defaulter lists, visitor screenshots or CCTV clips in the society WhatsApp group.
• Letting the visitor app vendor decide retention, analytics and ads for you.
• Forgetting to revoke the outgoing committee’s access to the CCTV recorder, the app admin panel and the email inbox.
• Treating a child exit alert and a full movement history of every child as the same thing.

Frequently asked questions

Is our housing society really a Data Fiduciary? Yes. The Act defines “person” to include an association of persons or a body of individuals, whether incorporated or not (section 2(s)). A society or RWA decides why and how it uses residents’ and visitors’ data, which makes it a Data Fiduciary.

Do we need consent to log visitors at the gate? Usually not. A visitor gives her details to get in, for a purpose you state at the gate, which fits section 7(a). You still need a notice, a retention period and access controls. Any other use of the logs needs its own ground.

Can we keep CCTV running without consent from every resident? The DPDP Act has no general “legitimate interests” ground, so the basis for routine CCTV in common areas is unsettled. Some rely on section 17(1)(c), the prevention and detection of offences, but that is a stretch for continuous recording. Put a clear notice at every camera, keep the purpose to security, keep footage briefly, and document your reasoning. Using cameras to monitor staff performance or residents’ habits is a different purpose. Confirm the position for your set-up with counsel.

A person enquired about a flat two years ago. Can we keep calling? Not on the original enquiry. Section 7(a) covers helping her with the request she made, and the Act’s broker illustration says you must stop when she no longer needs help. Silence for a long period suggests the purpose has ended. Ask for fresh consent before marketing to her.

How should we do domestic-help verification? Collect only what the local police form asks for, prefer masked Aadhaar or DigiLocker over photocopies, submit it, and keep only the acknowledgement. Where no police order requires verification, ask for consent and keep the data set small.

Do we need a Data Protection Officer? Only Significant Data Fiduciaries must appoint one, and that is unlikely for a developer, broker or society. Every fiduciary must publish a contact person who can answer questions about its processing (section 8(9), rule 9).