In this MediaNama Briefing held on September 8, 2023, we had Sahamati CEO BG Mahesh explain how data sharing takes place under the the account aggregator (AA) framework and how might Consent Managers work under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023.
The AA framework went live in September 2021 facilitating consent-based data sharing in the financial ecosystem, but the framework is now once again in the limelight thanks to the DPDP Act, which introduces the concept of Consent Managers. Under the Act, users can give and manage their consent for processing personal data using a Consent Manager. Account Aggregators are a type of Consent Managers, and an insight into their workings would give us some idea of how these entities will work under the DPDP Act.
You can watch the briefing call here:
What we covered
In this Briefing, we will cover:
- What are Account Aggregators?
- How do AAs facilitate data sharing?
- How can users manage consent using an AA?
- Which entities are onboarded onto the AA ecosystem?
- Who are Consent Managers under the DPDP Act and what are their functions?
- How will AAs work as Consent Managers under the DPDP Act, 2023?
- What’s the compliance burden in onboarding AAs as Consent Managers?
- What technical changes need to be made to the AA ecosystem to make it work with the DPDP Act?
- What will be the challenges in allowing AAs to act as Consent Managers?
- What other types of Consent Managers would the DPDP Act allow?
- Should working with Consent Managers be made mandatory for all data fiduciaries?
Speaker details: B.G. Mahesh is Co-founder & CEO of Sahamati, a not-for-profit industry alliance of participants in the Account Aggregator (AA) ecosystem. At Sahamati, Mahesh oversees all programs and works to establish productive relationships between market participants, policymakers, and the citizenry.
He’s been leading the implementation of the Account Aggregator framework, a Digital Public 
Infrastructure for Data empowerment. AA is a techno-legal framework that gives individuals & small businesses control of their data. It’s being rolled out in India and is the largest implementation of Open Finance globally.
Mahesh has spent nearly three decades enabling technology-driven solutions to problems of digital inclusion in India. Prior to Sahamati, Mahesh founded OneIndia.com, a very successful portal that served content to over 100 million users per month of consumers in Indian languages, which was acquired by DailyHunt.
