Consent, trust are uncompromising principles for AI, deeptech startups

Shivaarti Bajaj, Founder and Managing Partner, RSD Bajaj Global Law Firm, said consent and trust are the fundamental backbone for building AI and deeptech startups. Bajaj was speaking at TechSparks 2025 on ‘data driven deeptech versus privacy rights: startup strategies in India’s new regulatory era’. 

“When you are building the next big startup, your advantage is not speed, it's responsible speed,” Bajaj said, highlighting the need for applications and algorithms to be compliant with the law of the land. “If you are building within a regulatory framework, you can scale,” she added. 

Compliance is cheap but litigation is expensive, she said, while emphasising that when startups comply in time, it’s cheaper and not a blow to their balance sheet.

The Founding Managing Partner of RSD Bajaj Global Law Firm laid out a list of regulations that startups and founders need to keep in mind while building. This includes:

• Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act 2023, which provides for consent based processing, erasure rights, breach notice, and data fiduciaries ensuring lawful use, security and accuracy. 
• The IT Rules 2021 and amendments (2025), providing for synthetic content labelling, metadata embedding, traceability.
• AI governance guidelines, released by the ministry of electronics and IT earlier this month.  

Bajaj urged the industry to design the applications and algorithms in line with these regulations. 

As prescription to founders, Bajaj said startups should establish trust-first AI as product differentiator, align roadmap with compliance milestones, and build adaptable architectures for evolving rules 

Bajaj is a member of Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) executive committee on legal services, and has been awarded BW Legal 40 u 40. She is chair of executive council at Licensing Executives Society International (LESI) and India head for Women in AI Governance.