Does it apply to me
Does DPDP apply to B2B companies?
- Short answer
- Yes. Selling only to businesses does not put you outside the Act. The contacts at your client companies are individuals, and their names, work emails and phone numbers are personal data. Your own workforce is personal data too.
A company is not a Data Principal, so data about a company as an entity is out of scope. But you almost never hold only that. You hold the name of the buyer, the email of the site engineer, the phone number of the accounts contact.
Those are individuals, and the Act protects individuals regardless of the commercial context in which their data was collected.
In practice most B2B firms find their real exposure is the workforce and the vendor chain rather than the client contact list.
Where this comes from
- Section 2(j) and Section 3, DPDP Act 2023
The mistake people make
Reading B2B as meaning no personal data. The relationship is business to business; the contacts are still people.