Outsourcing your Data Protection Officer (DPO) role is about finding a partner who can help your business meet its data protection legal obligations, manage data risks effectively, and build a strong, sustainable personal data compliance framework.
To help businesses in Malaysia, here’s a five-item checklist to guide your external DPO appointment.
1. Comprehensive PDPA & industry knowledge
A competent DPO service provider should know how to effectively apply the law to your business.
When assessing suitability, think in terms of the KSA model:
- Knowledge – Are they well-versed with the Malaysian Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA), including its most recent amendments and enforcement developments?
- Skills – Have they advised businesses in your industry, demonstrated familiarity with sector-specific risks, and handled organisations of similar size, scale, or data sensitivity?
- Abilities – Can they translate legal obligations into practical, actionable compliance strategies, beyond textbook theory?
2. Fully aligned with PDPA guidelines
Under the Appointment of DPO and DPO Competency guidelines, all DPOs including outsourced ones are expected to meet key core competencies, namely:
- provide guidance and advice on PDPA matters;
- be familiar with PDPA laws, business operations and IT security;
- identify, assess, and mitigate risks related to processing of personal data, and
- oversee adherence to personal data protection laws and policies within the organisation.
Whether you are outsourcing or appointing an in-house DPO, it’s important to ensure they meet necessary DPO requirements as set out by the Malaysian government.
3. Alignment of needs and capabilities
As levels of support vary across DPO service providers, we suggest clarifying if they will:
- act as your named DPO or only provide back-end support without being named as a DPO;
- conduct gap assessments, audits, policy reviews, and training, or merely advise on such matters;
- provide end-to-end compliance support, including communication or submissions to the PDP Commissioner when required; and
- help your team build internal PDPA capabilities such as templates, workflows, awareness programmes, and periodic reviews.
Trustworthy providers are transparent about their scope of work, so verify a potential external DPO can deliver on your business’ need before signing on.
As required under the Appointment of DPO Guideline, the DPO’s scope of duties should be clearly spelled out in a written service contract and the Guideline recommends the appointment be valid for at least two years and subject to renewal.
4. Clear DPO pricing models
DPO providers may structure their fees in different ways. To make informed comparisons, ask about:
Common pricing models:
- fixed fee for specific tasks or milestones
- hourly billing for ad hoc support,e.g., advice on specific incidents or document reviews
- monthly retainers for ongoing support
- bundled packages for full compliance (e.g. gap assessment + PDPA policy review + acting as a named DPO)
- hybrid (fixed retainer with additional hourly rates for ad hoc work)
Common payment terms:
- monthly
- quarterly
- one-off (e.g. for short-term engagements or fixed-scope projects)
5. Responsive and easy to work with
Your external DPO evaluation doesn’t end once they’re appointed!
Instead, continuously assess their performance to ensure they’re not just strong on the sales pitch but deliver on compliance and operational needs.
Here are some questions you can ask yourself as you evaluate their performance:
- Do they respond quickly to questions or urgent compliance needs?
- Are they easy to communicate with (especially explaining legal concepts to non-lawyers)?
- Do they offer clear timelines and reliably meet agreed deliverables?
Responsiveness is especially critical during a data breach, where notification to the PDP Commissioner or affected data subjects must be made within a fixed timeframe (within 72 hours to 7 days) if the breach meets the threshold.
In such moments, every hour matters, so your DPO must attend to your incident as soon as possible.
Book a free DPO readiness consultation
An external DPO will have access to your organisation’s sensitive internal documentation, policies, processes, and data practices. They will also be expected to provide impartial oversight and ongoing advisory support to senior management.
Therefore, such person should ideally possess integrity and high professional ethics.
Book a free DPO readiness consultation with us and take the first step toward PDPA compliance.
