Most Market Research Agencies in India Are Not Ready for DPDPA Compliance!

India’s data economy is entering a decisive phase.

With the Digital Personal Data Protection Act (DPDPA) and the DPDP Rules 2025 now officially notified, organisations have a clear deadline of May 13, 2027. After this date, non-compliance is no longer a grey area. It becomes a regulatory, financial, and reputational risk.

While global technology companies and large enterprises are actively restructuring their data systems, a majority of market research agencies in India are still not operationally ready for DPDPA.

This gap between regulation and real-world research operations is where the biggest exposure lies.

Why DPDPA Compliance Is Especially Critical for Market Research Agencies

Market research sits at the centre of personal data usage. Agencies routinely collect identifiable respondent information, demographic and socio-economic data, opinions, preferences, and behavioural insights, often across longitudinal studies.

Under DPDPA, this places market research firms in a high accountability category, even if they operate behind the scenes for clients.

Yet many agencies still rely on implied or bundled consent, legacy survey tools, overseas data hosting, and manual compliance processes, practices that were once accepted but are now legally fragile.

1. The Consent Crisis and Why Implied Consent No Longer Works

Under DPDPA, consent must be free, specific, informed, purpose-bound, explicitly recorded, and easy to withdraw. Consent is no longer a one-time checkbox; it is a verifiable and revocable state.

In practice, most Indian market research agencies still use generic consent language or bundle consent into participation terms. They often cannot prove when or how consent was given and have no system to manage withdrawal.

At QuestionPro, we have solved this by integrating granular consent management directly into our survey flows, allowing researchers to capture and log explicit, verifiable consent in multiple Indian languages.

2. Data Minimisation Versus Legacy Research Practices

DPDPA requires that personal data be collected only for a defined purpose and deleted once that purpose is fulfilled. Traditional research workflows often involve retaining raw respondent data indefinitely, keeping backups without deletion timelines, and being unable to execute “right to erasure” requests at scale.

Most legacy research tools were built for speed, not privacy by design. QuestionPro leads the industry by building these principles into our core architecture, offering automated data retention policies and “Right to Erasure” workflows that ensure data doesn’t sit in your system a second longer than the law allows.

3. The Significant Data Fiduciary Blind Spot

Many research agencies assume they are merely “data processors”. In reality, if an agency defines the research objective, decides what data is collected, and determines retention methods, it qualifies as a data fiduciary under DPDPA.

If classified as a Significant Data Fiduciary, obligations increase sharply, including appointing a Data Protection Officer (DPO) and conducting regular independent audits.

Partnering with a DPDPA-ready platform like QuestionPro reduces this burden by providing the audit trails and security logs necessary to prove compliance during these mandatory assessments.

4. Data Localisation and Why Hosting Outside India Is a Growing Risk

DPDPA allows certain cross-border data transfers, but enforcement clarity continues to evolve. For market research agencies, foreign data hosting introduces regulatory ambiguity and procurement friction with enterprise clients.

Increasingly, BFSI, healthcare, and telecom sectors explicitly require India-hosted research data. QuestionPro didn’t wait for the law to catch up; we invested in a dedicated India Data Centre.

This ensures full data residency within Indian borders, eliminating cross-border transfer risks and providing faster survey load times for Indian respondents.

5. The 72-Hour Data Breach Reporting Reality

Under the DPDP Rules 2025, any personal data breach must be reported to the Data Protection Board of India and affected individuals within 72 hours. Most research agencies today lack real-time breach detection and incident response playbooks.

QuestionPro’s infrastructure includes 24/7 monitoring and real-time alerts. By centralising data in our India Data Centre, we provide the transparency needed to detect, contain, and report issues within the strict legal window.

6. DPDPA Compliance Checklist for Market Research Agencies in India

If you operate a research agency, these questions are no longer optional:

• Can you prove explicit respondent consent?

• Is consent withdrawal as easy as opt-in?

• Do you know exactly where respondent data is stored?

• Is your data hosted in India?

• Can you automatically delete data once the research purpose ends?

• Are audit logs and security records readily available?

If any answer is unclear, your DPDPA compliance is incomplete.

Compliance Is Becoming a Competitive Advantage

DPDPA is not only about avoiding penalties that can go up to ₹250 crore. It is increasingly a trust filter. Enterprises now evaluate research partners based on data residency, privacy-by-design architecture, and breach response capability.

Agencies that treat DPDPA as infrastructure rather than paperwork will win long-term contracts.

At QuestionPro India, we have approached DPDPA readiness as a product and architecture problem, not a legal afterthought, so your research teams can focus on insights instead of compliance firefighting.

Ready to move your data to India? Explore our India Data Centre and DPDPA-ready features today.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)