DPDP Act FAQs for Hiring, BGV & Onboarding

The DPDP Act has fundamentally changed how organisations must think about data in hiring, verification, and onboarding. Yet for most teams, clarity is missing. Legal summaries explain what the law says, but not how it affects daily decisions. This blog answers the most common DPDP Act FAQs specifically for hiring and BGV—because this is where data is most sensitive, most shared, and most vulnerable. Candidates today hand over identity documents, address history, employment records, and sometimes court-related information. Under DPDP, this is no longer “HR data.” It is personal data, owned by the individual. That shift has consequences. Consent must be clear and purpose-led. Data collection must be minimal. Accountability stays with the employer, even when verification is outsourced. The FAQs cover what valid consent really means, when background checks can run without consent, what rights candidates can exercise, and how organisations must respond to data breaches. More importantly, they explain how DPDP changes system design—from collecting everything upfront to building verification flows that are transparent, auditable, and time-bound. The takeaway is simple: DPDP does not slow hiring. Poorly designed processes do. DPDP encourages better workflows, fewer disputes, and stronger trust at scale. In modern hiring, compliance is not the goal—credible, respectful data handling is. DPDP just makes that expectation visible.