The Kerala High Court had on October 17, directed the Centre to make the Data Protection Board functional within eight weeks
**Board Appointment Still Pending**
The Centre has indicated that the Chairperson and members of the Data Protection Board of India (DPBI) will be appointed shortly, according to government sources. A senior official at the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) said the process is progressing but declined to commit to a specific timeline, noting that approvals are not entirely within the ministry's control. The Board has been pending for nearly a year.
**Why the Delay Matters**
The Kerala High Court, on October 17, directed the Centre to make the Board functional within eight weeks, while disposing of a public interest litigation. The petition sought strict compliance with the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act, 2023, and the DPDP Rules, 2025, in the collection, storage, processing and transmission of sensitive personal data of airport passengers across India. The government official said the order effectively gives the Centre more time to complete appointments.
MeitY had invited applications in May this year for one Chairperson and four Members. The Chairperson is expected to have experience equivalent to an Additional Secretary rank in the Government of India, while Members should have served at Joint Secretary level or hold comparable senior experience in corporate or academic sectors. The Board is designed as a fully digital, paperless body, tasked with investigating data breaches, monitoring compliance and imposing financial penalties on non-compliant companies.
**What Businesses Should Watch**
The DPDP Act is scheduled to come into force from May 13, 2027. Before that, consent managers must apply to the DPBI for registration starting November 13, 2026. Consent managers are registered, neutral intermediaries that let individuals give, manage, review or withdraw consent for their personal data across multiple organisations through a single interface.
Without the Board in place and without detailed guidelines on the consent ma…
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