Over the past two and a half years, a large number of citizens across the country have received their COVID-19 vaccinations from healthcare providers. Maintaining the privacy of citizens’ information is of paramount importance, while the government has been entrusted with the responsibility of ensuring its security, a significant breach has occurred recently. The details of thousands of these citizens have been leaked on a Telegram channel. Fourth News, a Malayalam news portal, reported that the leaked data included not only ordinary citizens, but also prominent political figures and famous personalities who had registered themselves on the government portal.
Notably, the Telegram channel contains comprehensive information such as a person’s Aadhaar card, PAN card, phone number, gender and date of birth, among other details. Reportedly, one can access the information just by entering a person’s name.
CoWIN data breach on Telegram
Apart from media outlets, some people are also reporting their data breach on the Telegram bot, which was reportedly removed on Monday morning. As reported by the Malayalam portal, the CoWIN data breach resulted in the leakage of key information including the individual’s Aadhaar number, mobile number, name, date of birth, and more.
Apart from common citizens, there were personal details of Union Health Ministry’s Rajesh Bhushan, his wife-MLA Ritu Khanduri, CoWIN High Power Panel Chairman Ram Sevak Sharma, Kerala Health Minister Veena George, Congress General Secretary KC Venugopal and Union Minister of State Meenakshi Lekhi . Also leaked on the portal.
Political leaders react to COVID data leak
While the government has not directly commented on the development, some political leaders have reacted and shared it on social media.
In a series of tweets, MP Supriya Sule hit out at the government, writing, “The time has come for the government to step up and enact strong data protection laws that clearly uphold our privacy. We demand action, transparency and security.” assurance that our personal data will be protected from any further breach.”
In its Digital India frenzy, the Government of India has neglected citizen privacy. Personal data of every Indian who has received the COVID-19 vaccination is publicly available. including my own data. Who allowed this to happen? Why is the Indian government sitting on the data protection law? @Ashwini Vaishnav Must answer. pic.twitter.com/mlmq0OuRK5— Karti P Chidambaram (@KartiPC) June 12, 2023
MP Karti P Chidambaram, whose details were also leaked on Telegram channel, shared a screenshot of his details and wrote, “In its Digital India frenzy, the Government of India has neglected citizen privacy. Personal data of every single Indian Who got the COVID-19 vaccination is publicly available. Including my own data. Who allowed this to happen? Why is the Indian government sitting on the data protection law? Ashwini Vaishnav should answer.”
shocking:
There has been a major data breach of the Modi government where personal details including mobile numbers, Aadhaar numbers, passport numbers, voter ID cards, family members details etc. of all vaccinated Indians have been leaked and are freely available.
some examples _
(1/7) — Saket Gokhale (@SaketGokhale) June 12, 2023
Expressing concern about the latest data breach, Trinamool Congress leader Saket Gokhale also shared some screenshots of famous personalities whose details were leaked by the portal.