Data on CoWIN portal are safe and secure, said RS Sharma, Chief Executive Officer of National Health Authority (NHA), who is also the in-charge of the portal.
“Whatever data we collect is very minimal like name, gender, mobile number…We don’t ask about marital status, address or about the pregnancy. No, such information is personally sensitive. So, whatever data we have are not secret data, but still we make sure that all the data which we have are encrypted and secure and safe,” said Sharma.
Download not possible
He further added that the data on the CoWIN cannot be downloaded. Download is possible when someone is downloading the vaccine certificate and in that situation one needs to submit the OTP number. So, it is highly unlikely that the data will be leaked. Interestingly, the statement comes at a time when there are alleged reports of massive data leak across many countries by Israeli surveillance company NSO Group through its hacking spyware, Pegasus.
However, when BusinessLine approached Health Ministry sources for clarification, they denied it outrightly and said that the clarification has nothing to do with this or any other news.
Sometime back in June also the Health Ministry had cleared the air about CoWIN data leak. There were rumours that the data of 15 crore Indians have been put on sale after news circulated that a hacker group, ‘Dark Leak Market’, claimed through a tweet that it is reselling the data for $800, but it was not the original leaker.