Compliance Services

Code Colonies runs its compliance practice inside its consulting division, and the practice was built around one lesson from twenty years of delivery work. The obligations written into data protection and security law are carried out by systems. Consent lives in a record that software maintains, retention works only when deletion jobs actually run, and a breach report stands on logs that were being written long before anything went wrong. Our engagement teams hold regulatory knowledge and engineering capability together, so the firm that defines a control is the same firm that builds it, tests it, and documents it.

We serve companies with obligations in India, the United States, and the European Union, across seven regulatory frameworks and ten sectors. Every engagement runs on fixed fees with written acceptance criteria, and every engagement closes with an audit ready evidence repository that the client's auditors can open and use.

The practice at a glance

Twenty years of offshore delivery for international clients.

Three jurisdictions covered as one practice: India, the United States, the European Union.

Seven frameworks: DPDP Act 2023, GDPR, HIPAA, PCI DSS, NIST, CCPA and CPRA, EU AI Act.

Ten sectors, from technology and healthcare to hospitality, real estate, manufacturing, and logistics.

Four live healthcare technology engagements handling regulated health data.

One hundred percent of engagements on fixed fees with written acceptance criteria.

Our operating principles

Three principles govern every engagement we take. First, compliance is built. A program is complete when the systems work, the people are trained, and the procedures have been tested, and documentation is one deliverable among many rather than the final one. Second, compliance is proven. Regulators, auditors, and enterprise clients ask for records, so every engagement closes with an evidence repository indexed by control and by framework. Third, compliance is exact. Scope, deliverables, and acceptance criteria are agreed in writing before work begins, and the Statement of Work governs the engagement from the first day to sign off.

How clients engage us

1. Assessment. A project engagement covering gap assessment, data inventory, risk analysis, and a remediation roadmap priced item by item. Two to three weeks for an organisation with up to five systems. Fixed fee.

2. Implementation. A project engagement covering policies, notices, consent systems, rights workflows, security controls, vendor remediation, breach preparedness, and training, signed off against acceptance criteria. Eight to twelve weeks for up to three systems. Fixed fee per phase, invoiced on milestones.

3. Compliance Retainer and Managed Compliance. An annual arrangement that keeps a live program current through regulatory monitoring, advisory support, rights request assistance, and an annual evidence refresh, with managed compliance operating these functions to agreed service levels. Monthly fee, scaled to volume.

4. DPO as a Service. A named data protection officer function with board reporting, including the DPIA and audit support duties that attach to the role. Annual term, monthly fee.

How fees work

Fees are fixed before the engagement and unchanged after signature. The scoping conversation carries no charge. Exact fixed professional fees per phase are stated in the client specific proposal, with no rate cards, no time and material meters, and no open ended engagements. The Statement of Work locks scope, deliverables, acceptance criteria, timeline, and fee in one signed document. Project fees are invoiced on milestone completion against written sign off, retainers are invoiced monthly, and any work outside the agreed scope is estimated in writing and approved before it begins.

Our fees sit substantially below prevailing market rates for equivalent scope, and the reason is structural. The practice runs from a single delivery base in Ahmedabad with senior led teams and no partner pyramid, and fixed fees against defined scope remove the estimation padding that open ended engagements carry. The full delivery standard described on this page applies at every fee level.

How we deliver

Every engagement follows five phases, and every framework carries its own implementation methodology built on them. In the Assess phase, which runs two to three weeks, systems and data are mapped and scored on a one to five maturity scale, producing the Data Inventory, the Gap Assessment Report, and the Remediation Roadmap. In the Design phase, one to two weeks, the target state is defined for every gap and everything is fixed in the Statement of Work. The Implement phase runs six to fourteen weeks depending on system count, and covers policies, notices, consent and rights systems built into applications, vendor contracts remediated, and teams trained. In the Validate phase, one to two weeks, every control is tested before it is called complete, the breach procedure is drilled and recorded, and each milestone is signed off in writing. The Sustain phase is ongoing, beginning with the handover of the Closure Report and the evidence repository and continuing through a retainer, managed compliance, or the client's own team.

Governance, quality, and evidence

Every engagement runs under formal project governance: a named senior practitioner as engagement lead and single point of contact, a kickoff that fixes the plan and the RACI matrix, weekly written status with red, amber, green ratings on each workstream, a maintained RAID log, change control, and a named escalation path with response times stated in the Statement of Work. Every deliverable has a named preparer and a named reviewer, and nobody reviews their own work. Framework positions cite the specific rule or clause so the client's auditors and counsel can verify each one. Where a framework requires an external certifier, such as a QSA under PCI DSS or an independent data auditor for Significant Data Fiduciaries, we prepare the client and support the audit, and we do not act as the certifying body.

The evidence repository is the closing deliverable of every engagement: registers, signed policies, consent records, rights request logs, test results, drill records, and training records, indexed by control and by framework. Workflows are built to statutory clocks, including the 72 hour breach reporting duty where GDPR applies, reporting to the Data Protection Board as prescribed under the DPDP Rules, rights responses within one month under GDPR, and 45 days under CCPA.

The working model

Delivery runs from Ahmedabad with working overlap into US and EU business hours, one point of contact regardless of time zone, and decisions recorded in writing. The practice brings its own proprietary tools built in house, covering assessment workbooks with maturity scoring, consent and rights workflow components, and the evidence repository structure, and clients choose freely between our tools, a third party platform, or their existing stack. We take no commission from any vendor, and third party tools are contracted by the client directly. We work beside existing counsel, auditors, or providers, or take over from them, and the baseline we inherit is documented before we change anything. Engagement information is held under NDA from the scoping stage, access follows least privilege, each client's data is segregated, and at closure materials are returned or destroyed at the client's instruction with written confirmation.

The team and where the legal line sits

Every engagement is led by a senior practitioner supported by privacy consultants, compliance engineers, and quality reviewers, all inside one firm. All compliance documentation is prepared in house by our practitioners, who include privacy professionals with legal education: notices, consent frameworks, policies, procedures, registers, agreements, and training material. The team proposed is the team that delivers, and substitutions happen only with the client's agreement.

The firm maintains strategic alliances with independent law firms. Where a matter requires a formal legal opinion or representation before a regulator or tribunal, counsel from the alliance network is engaged directly by the client, and our teams provide complete technical support to that counsel. Code Colonies Private Limited provides compliance implementation, consulting, and technology services. It does not provide legal advice, legal opinions, or legal representation. Where such services are required, the client will be assisted in engaging independent legal counsel of its choice.

Begin with a scoping conversation

An engagement begins with a scoping conversation and a short Scoping Questionnaire, and this step carries no charge. It is followed by a written proposal specific to your organisation covering scope, approach, deliverables, timeline, team, and exact fixed fees. Once the Engagement Letter and Statement of Work are signed, kickoff happens within one week. Write to consulting@codecolonies.com or visit codecolonies.com to begin.

consulting@codecolonies.com

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