Polity · 22 Jul 2026

DPDP Act 2023 verifiable consent

With reference to the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act, 2023, consider the following statements:

  1. Section 9 of the Act mandates verifiable parental consent before processing a child's personal data.
  2. The Act bars any processing of a child's data that is likely to cause harm to the child.
  3. APAAR, the student ID scheme to which the Act's child-data provisions were applied in a recent Supreme Court order, has statutory backing under an Act of Parliament.

Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

A1 only
B1 and 2 only
C2 and 3 only
D1, 2 and 3
This question is based on: Allow parents to opt out of APAAR ID data sharing, SC tells CBSE
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About this question

Why in news

The Supreme Court directed CBSE to add an explicit opt-out option to APAAR consent forms nationally, enforcing a December 2025 Orissa High Court ruling and testing the DPDP Act's verifiable consent standard.

Why for UPSC

UPSC frequently probes whether a scheme has "statutory" versus "non-statutory" status, a distinction with real legal consequences that this case makes newly testable, alongside the DPDP Act's specific child-protection provisions.

Prelims summary

DPDP Act Section 9 requires verifiable parental consent and bars harmful processing of children's data. APAAR, however, is a non-statutory NEP 2020 scheme, which explains its earlier lack of a built-in opt-out.

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