The Union Health Ministry has introduced a new 4 digit security code feature in the CoWIN portal. The ‘4 digit security code’ to minimise errors for online bookings/ appointments operational from May 8. The step was taken after it came to notice that some citizens , who had booked their appointment for COVID-19 vaccination through the CoWIN portal but did not actually go for the vaccination on the scheduled date, received SMS notification saying that a vaccine dose has been administered to them.
The Health Ministry stated, “upon examination it has been found to occur largely on account of the vaccinator wrongly marking the citizen as vaccinated, an instance of data entry error by the vaccinator.” The Ministry said. “ 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 May 8. Now, after verification, if the beneficiary has been found as eligible, before administering the vaccine dose, the verifier/vaccinator will ask the beneficiary about his/her 4 digit code and then enter the same in the CoWIN system to correctly record the vaccination status.”
The Ministry further said, this new feature will be applicable only for citizens who have done 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 vaccinator. The four digit code will also be sent in the confirmation SMS sent to the beneficiary after successful booking of appointment. The Appointment Acknowledgement slip can also be saved and shown from the mobile.