Senior Product Manager,
IDfy
A few weeks ago, a colleague mentioned struggling to book a solo flight for his 16-year-old daughter. The experience wasn’t broken—flights were listed, documents uploaded, payment processed. But then came the question that stopped him mid-checkout: “How is her data being handled across all this?”
That moment reflects a shift we’re seeing more often. Parents become more conscious of their child’s digital footprint. Platforms being expected to answer, not avoid, questions around data use. This shift is now codified in India’s Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act. As someone building privacy-led product infrastructure across industries, I don’t see this as a regulatory interruption—but as a moment of clarity. Especially for sectors like travel, where digital and real-world journeys intersect.
A Sector on the Move, A Law Catching Up
The travel industry has long thrived on digital ease. Booking a holiday, applying for visas, checking in—it’s all online, seamless, intuitive. But much of that experience has run on implicit trust, especially when it comes to children.
DPDP changes that. It requires explicit, verifiable parental consent before processing the data of anyone under 18. It prohibits tracking and profiling of minors, and calls for avoiding any processing that could cause harm.
This isn’t a marginal requirement. It touches every node in the travel ecosystem—airlines, OTAs, visa consultants, hotel chains, insurance providers, and even amusement parks. Because kids travel. With family, on school trips, and sometimes alone. And their data travels right alongside them.
Pre-Travel: Where Consent Begins
Imagine a parent booking a family trip via a travel app. Their 12-year-old is added as a passenger. The platform must now:
● Detect that a minor is part of the booking
● Trigger a consent workflow that’s seamless—but DPDP-compliant
● Verify the parent’s identity
● Log and store consent artifacts in an auditable, tamper-proof way
Most systems today aren’t built for this. Consent is often assumed, not captured. Parental authority is rarely verified. And once data flows downstream—to hotels, activity vendors, insurance agents—it’s hard to trace who has access to what, or why.
In-Transit: The Often-Forgotten Zone
Let’s extend the scenario. That same child now checks in at a resort, uses a theme park wristband, or downloads a city exploration app. These touchpoints often collect real-time data: location, biometrics, even behavioural signals.
Can the parent see what’s collected? Withdraw consent midway? Prevent that data from being used for profiling or upselling? Under DPDP, the answer needs to be yes. Consent isn’t a checkbox at booking—it’s a living permission, applicable across the entire experience.
For Businesses: Reimagining Trust as a Strategic Capability
As someone working at the intersection of product and privacy, I’ve seen how challenging this balance can be. Travel companies aren’t just chasing compliance—they’re fighting to retain the frictionless experiences their users love.
The implications of the DPDP Act go beyond legal checkboxes. This isn’t just a compliance problem. It’s a trust problem. And trust, in the world of travel, is everything. You’re not just managing a transaction—you’re guiding a journey. That journey begins digitally, often before any physical boarding pass is issued.
What’s required now is a shift—from data ownership to data stewardship. From collecting because we can, to collecting because we should. This requires investment in three areas:
- Agency-respecting architecture: Systems that detect and respect the presence of a parent or guardian throughout the journey.
- Transparent consent governance: Purpose-bound, revocable, traceable consent with a verifiable audit trail.
- Embedded privacy intelligence: Not as a post-facto compliance task, but as a design principle, built into workflows, partner integrations, and the product roadmap.
Looking Forward: Privacy as Differentiator
For parents, this shift is equally transformative. They’re no longer passive observers. They’re active decision-makers. And their expectations are evolving fast. Done right, this isn’t just about mitigating risk. It’s about building loyalty. Because tomorrow’s customers will reward platforms that respect their agency—and their child’s.
Children aren’t just passengers. They’re digital participants. And the platforms that recognize this—by embedding protection, not just policy—will lead the next era of travel tech. The DPDP Act is not a constraint. It’s an opportunity. To build privacy not as a promise, but as infrastructure. One that makes trust tangible, and competitive advantage real.
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