From Title To Data: Reconciling The Transfer Of
From Title To Data: Reconciling The Transfer Of Property Act, 1882 With The Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 And Digital Personal Data Protection Rules, 2025 In Karnataka’s E- Governed Land Ecosystem
Sunandeni R, Advocate, Bangalore, Shivanshi Mishra, Hidayatullah National Law University
ABSTRACT
The digitisation of land records does not simply affect the way in which land is transferred, but the way in which the people behind the land become visible to the State, markets and each other. All of this is becoming more apparent in Karnataka with its ever-closer land platforms. This article explores the interplay between the Transfer of Property Act, 1882, the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 and its 2025 rules, and the evolving registration framework. It then addresses the continuity of substantive property law through doctrinal analysis of statutory provisions, constitutional privacy jurisprudence and recent judicial decisions, suggesting that this continuity is accompanied by a re-distribution of transactional risk across public databases and private intermediaries. A public-record paradox is central to this inquiry: information disclosed under the law to secure reliability of title may fall outside statutory data-protection safeguards, but at the same time the digitisation of information means that it can be aggregated, profiled and commercially re-used in ways never imagined by the lawmakers. The article further identifies the disconnect between the responsibilities for data accuracy and the rights of individuals to correct the data, between the digital verification and the meaningful procedural review, and between the responsibility for data breaches and remedies for the proprietary effects of the breach. It advocates for a governance framework based on proportionate public access, correction through interdependent systems, human consideration of digital objections, accountable vendor relationships and coordinated incident response. Its central claim is that informational privacy is integral to reliable digital land administration: the security of property rights increasingly depends on the governance of the data through which those rights are recorded, verified and exercised.
