COWIN’S NEW FEATURE WILL LET FIRMS CHECK VAX STATUS
A new feature introduced in COWIN will allow entities like employers, airlines, railways, and hotels to check the vaccination status of a person. The feature or application programming interface (API) is called KYC-VS — Know Your Customer/client’s Vaccination Status. The health ministry said that there was a need to enable an Aadhaar-like authentication service for the status of vaccination through COWIN.
A new feature introduced in CO-WIN will allow entities like employers, airlines, railways, and hotels to check the vaccination status of a person.
The feature or application programming interface (API) is called KYC-VS — Know Your Customer/client’s Vaccination Status. The health ministry said that there was a need to enable an Aadhaar-like authentication service for the status of vaccination through CO-WIN. The ministry said in a statement, “As the socioeconomic activities are being gradually revived while maintaining everyone’s safety, there is a need for a way to digitally convey the status of individuals’ vaccination to entities with whom they may be engaging…”
The government stressed that this system is consent based and preserves privacy. The service, it said, can be used by any service provider, private or public, for whom verifying an individual’s vaccination status is critical for facilitating a service requested.
For instance, at the time of booking a railway ticket, besides sharing all the necessary details, the concerned entity can also get the vaccination status in the same transaction, with the consent of the individual.
To use this feature, an individual would need to enter their mobile number and name, and enter the one-time password (OTP) that gets generated.
CO-WIN will then respond to the verifying entity about the individual’s vaccination status with a “0” if the person is not vaccinated, “1” if the person has received one shot, or “2” if they are fully vaccinated.
The health ministry said the feature may be useful for airlines, which may want to get the passengers’ vaccination status, or airports may only want to allow vaccinated passengers to pass through. Hotels, too, might wish to know the vaccination status of guests at the time of checking in, or while making online bookings.
Besides, in order to facilitate quick integration and adoption, a webpage with the API – prepared by the CO-WIN team — may be embedded in any system. “This will allow for seamless integration with any system in no time,” the health ministry said.