DCPLA Online Practice Questions and Answers

Which of the following are key contributors that would enhance the complexity in implementing security measures for protection of personal information? (Choose all that apply.)

A. Data collection through multiple modes and channels

B. Evolution of nimble and flexible business processes affecting access management

C. Regulatory requirements to issue privacy notice and data breach notification in specified format

D. None of the above

Which of the following could be considered as triggers for updating privacy policy? (Choose all that apply.)

A. Regulatory changes

B. Privacy breach

C. Change in service provider for an established business process

D. Recruitment of more employees

In the landmark case _______________ the Honourable Supreme Court of India reaffirmed the status of Right to Privacy as a Fundamental Right under Part III of the constitution.

A. M. P. Sharma and others vs. Satish Chandra, District Magistrate, Delhi, and others

B. Maneka Gandhi vs. Union of India

C. Justice K. S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) and Anr. vs. Union of India And Ors

D. Olga Tellis vs. Bombay Municipal Corporation

Your district council releases an interactive of map of orange trees in the district which shows that the locality in which your house is located has the highest concentration of orange trees. Does the council map contain your personal information?

A. Yes your ownership of the property is a matter of public record.

B. No Orange trees are not a person and so it can't have personal information.

C. It depends on the context of other information associated with the map.

D. None of the above.

RCI and PCM

Given its global operations, the company is exposed to multiple regulations (privacy related) across the globe and needs to comply mostly through contracts for client relationships and directly for business functions. The corporate legal team is responsible for managing the contracts and understanding, interpreting and translating the legal requirements. There is no formal tracking of regulations done. The knowledge about regulations mainly comes through interaction with the client team. In most of the contracts, the clients have simply referred to the applicable legislations without going any further in terms of their applicability and impact on the company. Since business expansion is the priority, the contracts have been signed by the company without fully understanding their applicability and impact. Incidentally, when the privacy initiatives were being rolled out, a major data breach occurred at one of the healthcare clients located in the US. The US state data protection legislation required the client to notify the data breach. During investigations, it emerged that the data breach happened because of some vulnerability in the system owned by the client but managed by the company and the breach actually happened 5 months back and came to notice now. The system was used to maintain medical records of the patients. This vulnerability had been earlier identified by a third party vulnerability assessment of the system and the closure of vulnerability was assigned to the company. The company had made the requisite changes and informed the client. The client, however, was of the view that the changes were actually not made by the company and they therefore violated the terms of contract which stated that ?"the company shall deploy appropriate organizational and technology measures for protection of personal information in compliance with the XX state data protection legislation." The company could not produce necessary evidences to prove that the configuration changes were actually made by it (including when these were made).

(Note: Candidates are requested to make and state assumptions wherever appropriate to reach a definitive conclusion)

Introduction and Background

XYZ is a major India based IT and Business Process Management (BPM) service provider listed at BSE and NSE. It has more than 1.5 lakh employees operating in 100 offices across 30 countries. It serves more than 500 clients across industry verticals -- BFSI, Retail, Government, Healthcare, Telecom among others in Americas, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa. The company provides IT services including application development and maintenance, IT Infrastructure management, consulting, among others. It also offers IT products mainly for its BFSI customers.

The company is witnessing phenomenal growth in the BPM services over last few years including Finance and Accounting including credit card processing, Payroll processing, Customer support, Legal Process Outsourcing, among others and has rolled out platform based services. Most of the company's revenue comes from the US from the BFSI sector. In order to diversify its portfolio, the company is looking to expand its operations in Europe. India, too has attracted company's attention given the phenomenal increase in domestic IT spend esp. by the government through various large scale IT projects. The company is also very aggressive in the cloud and mobility space, with a strong focus on delivery of cloud services. When it comes to expanding operations in Europe, company is facing difficulties in realizing the full potential of the market because of privacy related concerns of the clients arising from the stringent regulatory requirements based on EU General Data Protection Regulation (EU GDPR).

To get better access to this market, the company decided to invest in privacy, so that it is able to provide increased assurance to potential clients in the EU and this will also benefit its US operations because privacy concerns are also on rise in the US. It will also help company leverage outsourcing opportunities in the Healthcare sector in the US which would involve protection of sensitive medical records of the US citizens. The company believes that privacy will also be a key differentiator in the cloud business going forward. In short, privacy was taken up as a strategic initiative in the company in early 2011. Since XYZ had an internal consulting arm, it assigned the responsibility of designing and implementing an enterprise wide privacy program to the consulting arm. The consulting arm had very good expertise in information security consulting but had limited expertise in the privacy domain. The project was to be driven by CIO's office, in close consultation with the Corporate Information Security and Legal functions.

What should be the learning for the company going forward? What should the consultants suggest? (250 to 500 words)

A. See the answer in explanation below.

B. PlaceHolder

C. PlaceHolder

D. PlaceHolder

Which of the following statement is incorrect?

A. Privacy policy may be derived from outcomes of privacy impact assessment

B. Misuse of personal information available in public domain may be construed as a privacy violation

C. A privacy policy once framed cannot be changed before the specified review period

D. None of the Above

What are the two phases of DSCI Privacy Third Party Assessment?

A. Initial and Detailed

B. Primary and Secondary

C. Initial and Final

D. None of the above

RCI and PCM

In April 2011, the rules were issued under Section 43A of the IT Act by the Government of India and the `body corporates' were required to comply with these rules. The Corporate legal team tried to understand and interpret the rules but struggled to understand its applicability esp. to client relationships and business functions. So, the company hired an IT Act legal expert to advise them on the Section 43A rules.

To start with, the company identified the PI dealt with by business functions as part of the earlier visibility exercise, but it wanted to reassure itself. Therefore, a specific exercise was conducted to revisit `sensitive personal information' dealt by business functions. It was realized that the company collects lot of SPI of its employees and therefore `reasonable security practices' need to be adhered to by the functions that deal with SPI. It was also ascertained that many of this SPI is being dealt by third parties, some of which are also located outside India. To meet the requirements of the rules, the company reviewed all the contracts and inserted a clause ?`the service provider shall implement reasonable security practices and procedures as per the IT (Amendment) Act, 2008'. Some of the large service providers were ISO 27001 certified and they claimed that they fulfill the requirements of `reasonable security practices'. However, some SME service providers did not understand what would `reasonable security practices' imply and requested the company to clarify, which referred them to Rule 8 of the Section 43A. Some small scale service providers expressed their unwillingness to get ISO certified, given the costs involved.

(Note: Candidates are requested to make and state assumptions wherever appropriate to reach a definitive conclusion)

Introduction and Background

XYZ is a major India based IT and Business Process Management (BPM) service provider listed at BSE and NSE. It has more than 1.5 lakh employees operating in 100 offices across 30 countries. It serves more than 500 clients across industry verticals -- BFSI, Retail, Government, Healthcare, Telecom among others in Americas, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa. The company provides IT services including application development and maintenance, IT Infrastructure management, consulting, among others. It also offers IT products mainly for its BFSI customers.

The company is witnessing phenomenal growth in the BPM services over last few years including Finance and Accounting including credit card processing, Payroll processing, Customer support, Legal Process Outsourcing, among others and has rolled out platform based services. Most of the company's revenue comes from the US from the BFSI sector. In order to diversify its portfolio, the company is looking to expand its operations in Europe. India, too has attracted company's attention given the phenomenal increase in domestic IT spend esp. by the government through various large scale IT projects. The company is also very aggressive in the cloud and mobility space, with a strong focus on delivery of cloud services. When it comes to expanding operations in Europe, company is facing difficulties in realizing the full potential of the market because of privacy related concerns of the clients arising from the stringent regulatory requirements based on EU General Data Protection Regulation (EU GDPR).

To get better access to this market, the company decided to invest in privacy, so that it is able to provide increased assurance to potential clients in the EU and this will also benefit its US operations because privacy concerns are also on rise in the US. It will also help company leverage outsourcing opportunities in the Healthcare sector in the US which would involve protection of sensitive medical records of the US citizens. The company believes that privacy will also be a key differentiator in the cloud business going forward. In short, privacy was taken up as a strategic initiative in the company in early 2011.

Since XYZ had an internal consulting arm, it assigned the responsibility of designing and implementing an enterprise wide privacy program to the consulting arm. The consulting arm had very good expertise in information security consulting but had limited expertise in the privacy domain. The project was to be driven by CIO's office, in close consultation with the Corporate Information Security and Legal functions.

Did the company take sufficient steps to protect SPI dealt by its service providers and ensure that it complies with the regulatory requirements? Was referring to `reasonable security practices' sufficient in the contracts or the company should have also considered some other measures for privacy protection as well? (250 to 500 words)

A. See the answer in explanation below.

B. PlaceHolder

C. PlaceHolder

D. PlaceHolder

Which of the following provisions of Information Technology (Amendment) Act, 2008 deal with protection of PI or SPDI of Individuals?

A. Section 43A and Section 72A

B. Section 43A

C. Section 65

D. Section 43A and Section 65

What is a Data Controller?

A. Entity that collects personal data

B. Entity that stores personal data

C. Entity that determines the purpose and means for data processing

D. Entity that shares personal data with third parties