India / Aadhaar not mandatory for registration on CoWIN portal: Health Ministry

New Delhi: At a time when the vaccination drive is going on in the country, Union Minister of State for Health Ashwini Choubey informed Lok Sabha on Friday that Aadhaar card is not mandatory for registration on Co-WIN portal.

“No, Aadhaar is not mandatory for registration on Co-WIN portal, Choubey said in a written reply in Lok Sabha. He further said that Rs 58.90 lakh has been incurred on Co-WIN as on February 1 this year.

Giving further details, the minister said that the Co-WIN portal has been developed by the Ministry of Health with the support from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), India Office.

Taking about privacy impact assessments Choubey said, “Yes, privacy impact assessments were carried out for Co-WIN portal. For data safety, data is encrypted using a highly secure key, no unauthorised access to database on AWS server is allowed and restricted access to relational database service (to decrease the risk of malicious activities).”

Notably, the Co-WIN application follows the privacy policy as stated in the National Digital Health Mission (NDHM).

The Health Ministry on Saturday said that over 56 lakh people have been inoculated till now and there has been no case of serious or severe adverse event following vaccination or death attributable to the vaccination till date.

Of the 56,36,868 beneficiaries vaccinated, Additional Secretary in the Union health ministry Manohar Agnani said 52,66,175 are healthcare workers and 3,70,693 are frontline workers whose vaccination started on February 2.