Section 37
Power of Central Government to issue directions to block access
Allows blocking of a Data Fiduciary’s service in the public interest after penalties have been imposed in two or more instances.
Read this before you cite anything here
These pages are a plain-English restatement, written to help you find the right provision and understand what it asks of you. They are not the text of the statute, and nothing here should be quoted as though it were. Section and rule numbers are exact, and every page names its source.
What it says
- 01
- Where a Data Fiduciary has been penalised in two or more instances, the Board may advise the Central Government to block public access to the information enabling that fiduciary to carry on its activity, in the interests of the general public.
- 02
- The Central Government may, after giving an opportunity of being hearing and on being satisfied it is necessary in the interests of the general public, direct any intermediary or agency of the Government to block access.
In practice
This is the Act’s real escalation, and it is not financial. A repeat offender can be taken off the Indian internet, which is a different order of business risk from a penalty and is the reason a second finding matters far more than the first.
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The DPDP brief
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Section 37 is live. One email a month on what moved in the Act, every claim cited to its section, the same way this page is.