India

Two held over involvement in CoWIN data ‘leak’

There have been claims about a breach of data of citizens registered on the CoWIN platform, and opposition parties have asked the government to take deterrent action.

New Delhi: A man from Bihar was arrested and a juvenile was apprehended in connection with their involvement in the alleged data leak from CoWIN portal, officials said on Thursday.

The man is alleged to have used a Telegram app to leak the data, they said.

There have been claims about a breach of data of citizens registered on the CoWIN platform, and opposition parties have asked the government to take deterrent action.

The government has termed such reports “mischievous” and “without any basis” while asserting that the CoWIN portal is completely safe with adequate safeguards for data privacy.

The matter was sent for a review by the country’s nodal cyber security agency CERT-In, which said in its initial report, that the backend database for the Telegram bot, which is at the centre of the alleged leak, was not directly accessing the APIs of the CoWIN database.

In a statement, the Union Health Ministry also said that an internal exercise has been initiated to review the existing security measures.

CoWIN portal is a repository of all data of all those who have been vaccinated against COVID-19 in the country.

This post was last modified on June 22, 2023 12:23 pm

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Press Trust of India (PTI) is India’s premier news agency, having a reach as vast as the Indian Railways. It employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.

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