New Delhi (NVI): CoWIN app, an online portal for COVID vaccine registration, has got a new security feature to avoid erroneous records of vaccine administered to citizens across the country.
The 4-digit security code has been added to the portal to minimize such errors and the subsequent inconvenience caused to the citizens, the Union Health Ministry said in a statement.
It has been noticed in some instances that citizens did not actually go for the vaccination on the scheduled date after booking their slot via COWIN portal but have received notification that the vaccine dose has been administered to them, it said.
Upon examination, it has been found to occur largely on account of the vaccinator wrongly marking the citizen as vaccinated, i.e. an instance of a data entry error by the vaccination.
“In order to minimize such errors and the subsequent inconvenience caused to the citizens, the CoWIN system is introducing a new feature of “4 digit security code” in the CoWIN application from 8th May 2021,” the ministry added.
Now, after verification if the beneficiary has been found as eligible, before administering the vaccine dose, the verifier or vaccinator will ask beneficiary about his/her 4 digit code and then enter the same in the CoWIN system to correctly record the vaccination status.
This new feature will be applicable only for citizens who have done an online booking for a vaccination slot. The “4-digit security code” will be printed in the appointment acknowledgement slip and will not be known to the vaccination, the statement said.
The four-digit code will also be sent in the confirmation SMS sent to beneficiary after successful booking of appointment. The Appointment Acknowledgement slip can also be saved and shown from the mobile.
This will ensure that, for such citizens who have booked an online appointment, the data entries regarding vaccination status of a citizen, are recorded correctly and only for those who book online appointment and avail the services at the center where they have booked the appointment, the statement read.
This will also reduce the opportunities of impersonation and wrongful use of flexibilities provided in CoWIN for facilitating vaccination coverage, it added.
