CoWIN data leak: Bihar man and juvenile arrested in Delhi

Two people have been arrested by the Delhi Police Special Cell for allegedly leaking data from the CoWIN platform. The arrested include a man and his juvenile brother, who are accused of gathering data from the CoWIN platform and putting it on the Telegram messaging app.

The arrests were conducted by the Intelligence Fusion and Strategic Operations (IFSO) unit of the Delhi Police Special Cell.

CoWIN is the platform that is used by the Health Ministry for registering COVID-19 vaccinations.

The two arrested by the Delhi police are residents of Bihar. The mother of the siblings is a health worker in Bihar.

Suspects accused of creating Telegram bot to access sensitive information

The arrested person is accused of creating a Telegram bot that allows anyone to apparently access CoWIN information without providing any details. Alongside the primary accused, the police also said, “A juvenile has also been apprehended in connection with the alleged Cowin Portal data leak case.”

While CoWIN platform contains the private details of its users, such as the name, gender, date of birth, Aadhar details, and residential address, one needs to provide either the correct mobile or Aadhar number to access those.

Government assures citizens that CoWIN data is safe

Officials from the Health Ministry has previously assured the people that CoWIN data is safe. They confirmed that CoWIN has several security safeguards to prevent data from being hacked or leaked.

According to Rajeev Chandrashekhar, Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology, the data that is available through the Telegram bot created by the accused accessed the sensitive information from other stolen database.