The Data Empowerment and Protection Architecture (DEPA) empowers every Indian with control over their data. It democratises access and enables secure portability of trusted data between service providers. It involves the creation of a standardized technology architecture implemented within the right institutional constructs.
DEPA’s technology architecture is an interoperable, secure, and privacy preserving framework for data sharing through
A technology standard for a machine readable Consent Artefact;
Open APIs for data sharing; and
A standard for Financial information.
The consent artefact is designed to be Open, Revocable, Granular, Auditable, provide Notice, and maintain Security by design (ORGANS). Since data security and protection is a critical prerequisite for empowerment, DEPA also relies on the adoption of related standards for data storage and processing techniques.
DEPA’s institutional Architecture involves the creation of new market players knowns as Consent Managers who play the role of enabling consent management for the user. These consent managers are ‘data blind’ and will not see user data themselves; rather they will serve as a conduit for encrypted data flows. The role of consent managers has been called out in the Economic Survey 2019, and has been termed in the Justice Srikrishna Committee Report as a ‘consent dashboard’. Consent Managers in the financial sector are known as Account Aggregators.
DEPA forms the final layer (more commonly known as the Consent Layer) of India Stack, a series of digital public goods designed to enable private market innovators to introduce improved digital services for India across a range of sectors. The other layers of India Stack include Aadhaar (including authentication and eKYC), the Unified Payments Interface, DigiLocker, and eSign.