FDPPI, Foundation of Data Protection Professionals in India was started in September 2018 to be an organization of the Data Protection Professionals, By the Data Protection Professionals and for the Data Protection Professionals. Since India was intending to come out with a specific data protection law in India at that time, there was a felt need to create an adequate appreciation of Privacy Rights and the role of a data protection professional the Data Protection Eco system in India.
FDPPI stepped in to fill the void and lead the Data Protection Ecosytem in India with a clear focus on the Indian requirements. Though there were some other agencies who had a similar thinking, it was felt that there was a need to build a new entity by the professional community themselves.
Encouraged by a few like minded individuals, a core group of professionals set up FDPPI as a Section 8 Company (Not for profit) with “Limited By Guarantee” structure to align it with an acceptable structure of one member one vote as in a society structure.
Over the last two years, FDPPI has grown into an organization which has made substantial progress in educating the community on Indian Data Protection regulation as it exists today and emerging in the future. In association with Naavi’s 20 year old Cyber Law College, FDPPI rolled out its certification programs in December 2019 with the first Certification titled “Certified Data Protection Professional-Module I” (CDPP-M I)covering the Indian laws. But the goals were set higher to create an empowered community of “Certified Expert Data Protection Professionals” (CEDPP) with a a legal knowledge base covering Indian and global data protection laws, data protection technology and data audit skills along with an enhancement of behavioural skills required for Data Security Governance.
This enhanced vision of FDPPI to expand beyond the shores of India in terms of knowledge has gained a significant momentum today with the opening of its doors to membership from outside India and also launch of the next Certification module on Global data protection laws covering GDPR, CCPA, Singapore PDPA, HIPAA and Dubai DPL 2020. The certification training is set to commence from July 11th, 2020 and will lead to the title of “Certified Data Protection Professional-Module G”.
This is the second significant step for a professional to become a Certified Expert Data Protection Professional with a reasonable skill set of Legal knowledge supported by necessary technical, audit and behavioural skills to be a good Data Protection professional the community would be proud of.
FDPPI has placed emphasis on creating Ethical set of professionals empowered with the knowledge and skills and believes in Certification as a pointer to knowledge enhancement. Hence every module of FDPPI certification is associated with a mandatory training program to open the eyes of the professionals to a new area of their skill requirement.
India is yet to complete the formality of enacting the new Personal Data Protection Act, (PDPA) but by an innovative legislative framework, the currently available Information technology Act 2000 (ITA 200)) is functioning as the shadow of the proposed PDPA by the interpretation of “Due Diligence” and “Reasonable Security Practice” already enshrined in ITA 2000, of which the extension is the forthcoming PDPA.
In a way, PDPA India has become effective even before its passage as an Act and born out of the womb of ITA 2000 in the form of “Due Diligence”. This has been unique to India.
Several senior Corporate Professionals in the Privacy, Legal, Technology, Information Security and General Management domain have already been part of the FDPPI movement.
The journey has begun.. but there are many more milestones to cover in this local to global journey.
I invite all like minded professionals to join hands and expand this organization into a truly Indian originated global venture of Data Protection Professionals.
Naavi
