CoWIN launches ‘Know Your Customer’s/Client’s Vaccination Status’

To check the Covid-19 vaccination status of an individual, the Co-WIN portal has developed a new API called ‘Know Your Customer’s/Client’s Vaccination Status’, the Union Health Ministry said on Friday.

The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) said that to use the application program interface (API), an individual needs to enter his or her mobile number and name after which they would receive an OTP which they have to enter. In return, Co-WIN will send a response to the verifying entity on the individual’s status of vaccination, which will be: 0 – Person is not vaccinated, 1 – Person is partially vaccinated or 2 – Person is fully vaccinated. This response will be digitally signed and can be shared instantly with the verifying entity.

This can be useful in instances where an entity does not need to see the certificate in full and would just need to know whether an individual has been vaccinated or not, the statement said.

A real-life example could be when at the time of booking a railway ticket, an individual will input the necessary details for buying the ticket and if required, the concerned entity will also get the vaccination status in the same transaction, with the due consent of the individual, the Ministry said.

The Ministry further said that the KYC-VS will facilitate all such use cases and more. It is both consent-based and privacy-preserving.

Additionally, in order to facilitate quick integration and faster adoption, the Co-WIN team has prepared a webpage with the API, which may be embedded in any system. This will allow for seamless integration with any system in no time.

“Besides the use cases pointed out, this service may be utilized by any service provider, private or public, for whom verifying an individual’s vaccination status is critical for facilitating a service requested,” it said.