India’s censor board is facing questions after a reported leak from its certification portal exposed sensitive film files for more than 500 titles, including dozens of feature films. The Hindu’s Aroon Deep reported that documents submitted through the e-Cinepramaan portal were bundled as datasets and left on the Internet Archive, where they could be downloaded for days before being taken down on October 12.
What the leak reportedly contained
CBFC certification is mandatory for theatrical release in India, so the portal holds pre-release material for hundreds of films. According to the report, the exposed records span December 2025 to August 2026 and include:
- Shooting scripts with shot-by-shot translations, annotations and dialogue clarifications.
- Summaries of cuts ordered by the CBFC—information that should already be public under Section 5A(2) of the Cinematograph Act, 1952.
- Distribution agreements for international films released in India and Indian films licensed for dubbing, with at least three agreements showing licensing fees because redaction was missing or weak.
MediaNama has not independently reviewed the files. The Hindu identified agreements linked to Brazil’s Oscar-nominated The Secret Agent and the Hollywood film Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die.
The board’s first response
CBFC said it had reviewed the information but found “no trace has been found of the certification-related documents that were claimed to have been accessed.” Despite that, it filed a cybercrime complaint, notified CERT-In and said its technical team is analysing servers and databases alongside a forensic examination.
That sequence fits a familiar pattern in India: organisations first contest or minimise reported breaches, then launch probes. MediaNama points to earlier responses from MeitY on eMudhra keys, SBI’s description of a customer record leak as “very very small”, and the Dodo Payments case where dark web data went beyond what the company acknowledged.
Why producers should care
For producers and distributors, the practical risk is not just piracy. Leaked scripts, censor notes and unredacted licensing fees can weaken negotiating positions, expose contracting terms and arm competitors. The leak also revives a transparency issue: cut summaries are supposed to be public, but CBFC’s site had hidden them behind an “under maintenance” notice.
The breach is not an online censorship ruling—CBFC has no jurisdiction over streaming content. But it arrives as the industry is already debating OTT regulation; the RSS has floated the idea of “something like a censor board” for streaming, and Zee5 pulled the re-titled Punjab 95 within about 48 hours. A certification portal that cannot keep pre-release files private hardly strengthens the case for more centralised control.
Source: MEDIANAMA
