CoWIN completely safe, has adequate safeguards for data privacy: Centre on alleged leak

Issuing a clarification over the matter, the Centre said: “Certain posts on the social media platform Twitter have claimed using a Telegram (online messenger application) BOT, the personal data of individuals who have been vaccinated is being accessed. It is reported that the BOT has been able to pull individual data by simply passing the mobile number or Aadhaar number of a beneficiary.”

“It is clarified that all such reports are without any basis and mischievous in nature.  Co-WIN portal of Health Ministry is completely safe with adequate safeguards for data privacy. Furthermore, security measures are in place on Co-WIN portal, with Web Application Firewall, Anti-DDoS, SSL/TLS, regular vulnerability assessment, Identity & Access Management etc. Only OTP authentication-based access of data is provided. All steps have been taken and are being taken to ensure security of the data in the CoWIN portal,” the statement added.

Explaining the security measures, the statement informed: “The development team of COWIN has confirmed that there are no public APIs where data can be pulled without an OTP. In addition to the above, there are some APIs which have been shared with third parties such as ICMR for sharing data. It is reported that one such API has a feature of sharing the data by calling using just a mobile number of Aadhaar. However, even this API is very specific and the requests are only accepted from a trusted API which has been white-listed by the Co-WIN application.”

The Union Health Ministry, however, has requested the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) to look into the issue and submit a report.

The alleged leak could impact more than 100 core individuals who have secured vaccinations after signing up through the CoWIN portal. This includes more than 4 crore children between the age of 12-14 and over 37 crore people over the age of 45, a significant part of which could be senior citizens.