BEYOND THE CHECKBOX
A GRC platform generates a checkmark. It cannot speak for the organisation when a breach happens, an AI pipeline leaks data, or the Data Protection Board of India sends a notice under Section 27. DRMLAW does not sell GRC platforms or security software. We assess the business, recommend and coordinate the right technology partners, govern AI usage, train staff, and represent the client before regulators when enforcement arrives.
Direct access to certified DPOs and practising advocates, based in Kolkata and serving Data Fiduciaries across West Bengal, Eastern India and pan-India. No sales calls from software vendors.
Public tools & diagnostic resources
01 — Core Philosophy
GRC and security platforms do real work — they map assets, track tasks, flag vendor risk, and surface alerts. That is the top of the compliance pyramid, and we use these tools every day. What they cannot do is sit in the Data Protection Board's chamber, explain why a particular processing activity was lawful, or absorb regulatory consequence on behalf of a board.
No two businesses share a risk profile. A retail jeweller's WhatsApp marketing, an EdTech firm's biometric attendance, a hospital's patient records and an NBFC's loan-decisioning model raise entirely different questions under the same statute. A generic dashboard cannot answer those questions. A practitioner who has read the statute, the rules, the CERT-In directions and the sector-regulator overlap can.
DRMLAW treats DPDP compliance as a managed business function — assessed against the organisation's actual operations, fitted with an independently chosen technology stack, and held together by project management, AI governance and workforce training. The outcome is a programme that survives scrutiny, not a screen that says everything is fine.
02 — The Seam
| Capability / Function | GRC / Security Software | DRMLAW |
|---|---|---|
| Data mapping & asset tracking | Yes | Yes |
| Automated checklists & task alerts | Yes | Yes |
| Vendor risk flagging | Yes | Yes |
| Business-specific risk assessment | — No | Yes |
| Independent technology stack selection | — No | Yes |
| AI governance | — No | Yes |
| Legal risk judgement | — No | Yes |
| Contract & SLA realignment | — No | Yes |
| Court-admissible evidence formatting (Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam) | — No | Yes |
| Workforce privacy training | — No | Yes |
| Representation before the Data Protection Board of India | — No | Yes |
Software handles the top rows well. Everything below requires legal judgement, business context, or human accountability.
03 — Delivery Disciplines
We start by understanding how the business actually operates — WhatsApp marketing flows, CCTV at the front desk, biometric attendance, vendor data-sharing arrangements, customer onboarding paths — not by handing over a generic checklist template.
DRMLAW has no commercial relationship with any GRC, consent management or security vendor. We evaluate and recommend tools on fit; you contract and own the technology directly, on terms you control.
Data-ingestion rules and usage boundaries for AI tools — covering customer-facing models, internal copilots and third-party APIs. DRMLAW can serve as your Chief AI Officer function or advise an existing CTO / CISO absorbing the role.
Restructure SLAs, cross-border transfer terms and processor agreements so legal liability sits where it can be enforced — not where the contract template happened to leave it.
Ongoing coordination of IT, vendors and auditors under one delivery plan, paired with role-based training for the workforce — marketing, HR, engineering and customer-facing teams each get what they actually need.
Consent logs and breach evidence structured to meet Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam admissibility standards. If a breach or DPB notice arrives, the same firm that built the programme appears as advocate of record.
04 — Leadership Functions
DPDPA compliance is not one role. It is several distinct functions that most organisations cannot resource individually. DRMLAW supplies the ones that should sit with the law firm and helps you source the ones that should not.
DRMLAW serves as your external statutory DPO under Section 10 of the DPDPA, 2023, with a board-level reporting line. The function is held by a C.DPO.DA-certified partner — not delegated to a junior associate.
DRMLAW can serve as or advise the Chief AI Officer function — covering model risk, algorithmic fairness, NIST AI RMF risk-tiering and ISO/IEC 42001 controls. For most organisations a fractional CAIO is the right answer.
DRMLAW does not place a CISO directly. We guide you to a Virtual CISO arrangement through specialist firms we work with, or help you scope, interview and hire a full-time CISO. You contract the CISO; we manage the seam.
Practising advocates — not a handoff to outside counsel. Our Founding Partner is enrolled at the Bar Council of West Bengal and can appear before the Data Protection Board under Section 27 and on appeal before TDSAT under Section 29.
05 — Engagement Tiers
Get audit-ready. Fixed scope. Fixed timeline. Fixed fee.
MSMEs, educational institutions, healthcare providers, retail businesses, and first-time compliance projects.
Inclusions
DRMLAW manages the entire project. We work with your existing IT team or bring in a system integrator. You don't need to hire anyone new.
Compliance delivered. Statutory DPO in place. Ongoing legal cover.
Significant Data Fiduciaries or organisations approaching that threshold; businesses processing sensitive personal data at scale.
Adds over Tier 1
Even if your organisation is not yet a Significant Data Fiduciary, appointing an external DPO signals governance maturity to clients, auditors and regulators — at a fraction of a full-time hire.
One team. Complete accountability. Board to engineering.
Enterprises with complex, multi-vendor, multi-jurisdiction data ecosystems — AI systems, cross-border operations, regulated sectors.
Programme Management
AI Governance
Security Guidance
Advanced Compliance
06 — Privacy by Design
Bolt-on compliance always shows. A privacy notice taped onto an existing product, consent screens grafted into a signup flow, retention policies invented after the data has already been collected — these patterns are exactly what regulators look for and exactly what break first under scrutiny. DRMLAW embeds compliance from the start, as a property of the system rather than a wrapper around it.
PIA / DPIA early in the SDLC — so privacy risks surface during design, before architecture decisions lock in. A fix at the whiteboard stage costs nothing; the same fix after launch can mean a rewrite.
DRMLAW specifies what the controls must do — consent, retention, DSAR, breach detection, AI governance. Your team or integrator implements them inside your existing stack. We do not sell or install the technology.
DPDPA, GDPR, ISO 27701 and NIST Privacy Framework share most of their architectural primitives. Designed-for from the start, a single programme answers every audit — without a parallel compliance project for each regime.
07 — Sectors Served
Student data, parental consent under Section 9, biometric attendance, LMS vendor due diligence.
Sensitive health data, electronic medical records, TPA and insurance data-sharing, telemedicine consent.
DPDPA running concurrently with RBI Digital Lending and SEBI CSCRF — same incident, multiple regulators.
Loyalty data, payment records, marketing consent, WhatsApp outreach, in-store CCTV and footfall analytics.
Client data held as a Data Fiduciary — confidentiality, retention, cross-border transfer, audit trails.
“A dashboard cannot attend a Data Protection Board hearing. When the statutory cap is ₹250 crore, compliance requires legal judgement, the right technology, and a workforce that understands its role — not just a green checkmark.”
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An independent, technology-neutral assessment from certified Data Protection Officers and practising advocates — before enforcement, not after.