django-compliance-shield

Drop-in Django library for global privacy compliance. One decorator. Full DPDP, GDPR, CCPA, FCRA compliance.

What it does

Add one decorator to your model. The library handles everything else.

from compliance_shield.decorators import sensitive_field

class UserProfile(models.Model):
    data_region = models.CharField(max_length=10, default='IN')

    @sensitive_field(field_type='pan', jurisdiction_field='data_region')
    class pan_number:
        pass

    @sensitive_field(field_type='ssn', jurisdiction_field='data_region')
    class ssn_number:
        pass

That is all you write. The library automatically creates:

Features

Encryption

• Field-level Fernet encryption with separate keys per jurisdiction
• Blind index for searching encrypted fields
• Auto-masked property (field_masked)
• Key rotation via python manage.py rotate_keys
• MultiFernet supports zero-downtime key rotation

Consent Management

• ConsentRecord stores exact text shown, version, IP, timestamp
• Consent gate middleware — redirects to consent page if required consents missing
• Withdraw consent — triggers DataDeletionRequest automatically
• Privacy settings page — users manage all consents in one place

Data Subject Rights

• DataSubjectRequest handles all rights across all jurisdictions
• Auto-calculated deadlines: IN=30d, US access=45d, FCRA=30d, EU=30d
• High-sensitivity requests require identity verification
• DSR confirmation email sent automatically

Data Retention

• 29 retention policies seeded out of the box
• Daily enforcement: python manage.py enforce_retention
• DataRetentionLog — immutable audit trail of every enforcement action
• Legal hold flag prevents deletion of records under investigation

Breach Notification

• DataBreachRecord tracks every breach
• Authority notification deadlines per jurisdiction (72h IN/EU/UK/US, 30d AU)
• Admin dashboard shows overdue notifications in red

Compliance Middleware

• Jurisdiction detection on every request
• Security headers: X-Data-Region, X-Frame-Options, X-Content-Type-Options, Referrer-Policy, Permissions-Policy, Strict-Transport-Security

Django Admin

• Admin registration for all 7 compliance models
• Bulk actions: mark DSR in progress / completed, mark breach contained / resolved
• Consent records and access logs are permanently read-only

Jurisdiction coverage

What's new in v1.2.0

Security fixes

Two security bugs fixed — upgrade immediately if using v1.1.0:

• Access log data leak — GET /api/compliance/access-log/ previously returned logs matching any model whose name contained the user class name (e.g. "User"), allowing a user to see other users' field-access history. Now filtered strictly by the requesting user's PK.
• Open redirect — the ?next= parameter in the consent flow was not validated against the current host. Fixed with url_has_allowed_host_and_scheme.

Audit trail: who accessed what (GDPR Art.30)

Every SensitiveDataAccessLog entry now records which authenticated user triggered the field decryption. The middleware sets a thread-local on every request; the descriptor reads it automatically. Requires migration 0002_audit_accessed_by.

python manage.py migrate

Retention handlers — enforce PII deletion/anonymisation

enforce_retention can now act on your app's own data categories. Subclass BaseRetentionHandler and register it:

from compliance_shield import BaseRetentionHandler

class PanAadhaarHandler(BaseRetentionHandler):
    def get_queryset(self, cutoff):
        return UserProfile.objects.filter(created_at__lt=cutoff)

    def anonymise(self, queryset):
        queryset.update(_pan_number=None, pan_number_index=None)

COMPLIANCE_SHIELD = {
    'RETENTION_HANDLERS': {
        'pan_aadhaar': 'myapp.handlers.PanAadhaarHandler',
    },
}

Privacy policy version re-consent enforcement

Bumping PRIVACY_POLICY_VERSION now actually prompts users to re-consent. Previously the middleware accepted any old-version consent regardless of the configured version.

Custom profile relation names

COMPLIANCE_SHIELD = {
    # Override if your app uses a different profile accessor name
    'PROFILE_RELATIONS': ['account', 'worker'],
}

What's new in v1.1.0

1. Email notifications, DRF API, jurisdiction control

COMPLIANCE_SHIELD = {
    # Only activate India and USA compliance.
    # Consent gate, retention policies, DSR types, and breach deadlines
    # will only apply to these two jurisdictions.
    'ENABLED_JURISDICTIONS': ['IN', 'US'],  # None = all (default)
}

python manage.py compliance_setup will only seed policies for enabled jurisdictions. The middleware consent gate will only fire for users in enabled jurisdictions. The privacy settings page will only show DSR types relevant to enabled jurisdictions.

2. Email notifications — fully configurable

COMPLIANCE_SHIELD = {
    'EMAIL_NOTIFICATIONS': True,           # master switch (default: False)
    'EMAIL_FROM': 'compliance@co.com',     # defaults to DEFAULT_FROM_EMAIL

    # Who gets notified when a user submits a DSR
    'DSR_ALERT_RECIPIENTS': ['privacy@co.com'],

    # Who gets notified immediately when a breach is recorded
    'BREACH_ALERT_RECIPIENTS': ['dpo@co.com', 'legal@co.com'],

    # Who gets the daily overdue DSR digest (from enforce_retention cron)
    'OVERDUE_DSR_RECIPIENTS': ['privacy@co.com'],

    # Whether to email the user on DSR submit / complete / reject
    'DSR_USER_CONFIRMATION_EMAIL': True,
}

All notifications use Django's standard email backend. Silent fail — a misconfigured email backend will never crash the compliance system.

3. DRF support — works with React, Vue, mobile, and headless projects

# urls.py — use template views, API views, or both
urlpatterns = [
    path('compliance/', include('compliance_shield.urls')),         # template views
    path('api/compliance/', include('compliance_shield.api_urls')), # DRF API views
]

Available API endpoints:

All endpoints require authentication. All return JSON.

Quick start

pip install django-compliance-shield

# settings.py
INSTALLED_APPS = [..., 'compliance_shield']

MIDDLEWARE = [
    ...
    'django.contrib.auth.middleware.AuthenticationMiddleware',
    'compliance_shield.middleware.ComplianceMiddleware',
    ...
]

COMPLIANCE_SHIELD = {
    'ENCRYPTION_KEY_IN':    env('ENCRYPTION_KEY_IN'),
    'ENCRYPTION_KEY_US':    env('ENCRYPTION_KEY_US'),
    'ENCRYPTION_KEY_EU':    env('ENCRYPTION_KEY_EU'),
    'ENCRYPTION_KEY_OTHER': env('ENCRYPTION_KEY_OTHER'),
    'BLIND_INDEX_SECRET_IN':    env('BLIND_INDEX_SECRET_IN'),
    'BLIND_INDEX_SECRET_OTHER': env('BLIND_INDEX_SECRET_OTHER'),
    'PRIVACY_POLICY_VERSION': 'v1.0.0',
    'DEFAULT_JURISDICTION': 'IN',
    'REQUIRED_CONSENTS': ['data_collection', 'data_processing'],
}

# urls.py
urlpatterns = [
    ...
    path('compliance/', include('compliance_shield.urls')),
]

python manage.py migrate
python manage.py compliance_setup

Wire consent into registration:

from compliance_shield.utils import record_registration_consents
record_registration_consents(user, request, jurisdiction='IN')

See docs/quickstart.md for the full guide.

Supported field types

pan ssn aadhaar passport gov_id dob financial health biometric custom

See docs/field-types.md for full reference.

Requirements

• Python 3.9+
• Django 3.2, 4.2, 5.0, 5.1, or 5.2+
• cryptography>=41.0.0

Management commands

Author

Yogesh Chauhan — AI and Django engineer, Ahmedabad, India.

GitHub | LinkedIn | Portfolio

License

MIT — see LICENSE.