Government of India has refuted media reports of a major data breach in the Covid vaccination portal CoWIN. The reports allege a breach of data from the Co-WIN portal of the Union Health Ministry, which is the repository of all data of beneficiaries who have been vaccinated against Covid.

In a statement, the Union Health Ministry 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,” the statement said.