Health ministry warns people against fake Co-WIN apps

The Union Health Ministry has cautioned people against downloading or sharing personal details on apps that have names similar to "Co-WIN". This is because the ministry said that such apps were created by "unscrupulous elements" and can misuse personal information.

"Some apps named 'Co-WIN' apparently created by unscrupulous elements to sound similar to the upcoming official platform of Government, are on Appstores. DO NOT download or share personal information on these. MoHFW Official platform will be adequately publicised on its launch," the Union Health Ministry tweeted.

Some apps named "#CoWIN" apparently created by unscrupulous elements to sound similar to upcoming official platform of Government, are on Appstores.

DO NOT download or share personal information on these. #MoHFW Official platform will be adequately publicised on its launch.

- Ministry of Health (@MoHFW_INDIA) January 6, 2021

The Co-WIN (COVID Vaccine Intelligence Network) app, a digital platform created for real-time monitoring of COVID-19 vaccine delivery and distribution by the Centre, is in its final stage of implementation and has not gone live on Google Play Store or any other app store.

The health ministry had earlier stated that Co-WIN digital platform includes a free downloadable mobile application that can help record vaccine data. One can register themselves on it if they want the vaccine.

"There will be five modules in Co-WIN app -- Administrator module, registration module, vaccination module, beneficiary acknowledgment module, and report module."

The administrator module is for the administrators who will be conducting these vaccination sessions. Through this module, they can create sessions and the respective vaccinators and managers will be notified.

The registration module is for people to get registered for vaccination. It will upload bulk data on co-morbidity provided by local authorities or by surveyors.

The vaccination module will verify the beneficiary's details and update the vaccination status.

The beneficiary acknowledgment module will send SMS to beneficiaries. It will also generate QR-based certificates after one gets immunised.

The report module will prepare reports of how many vaccine sessions have been conducted, how many people have attended those, how many people have dropped out etc.

The app will also send real-time data of the temperature of the cold-storages to the main server.

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