After the CoWin data breach, another might be in tow in Gujarat

The Gujarat government has taken the initiative to formulate digital health cards for its student body to track their cognitive and nutritional development. However, with the CoWin data breach in recent times, attaching nutritional development with surveillance only spells ‘disaster’.

According to an IANS report, the Gujarat government is looking to start this initiative under its Shala Arogya-National Child Health Program (SHRBSK). This program was given the green light on June 12, as the incumbent BJP government plans to conduct health check-ups of over one crore school children through the following 30 days.

The program has been introduced to offer free health checkups to students, while also diagnosing ailments such as anaemia, malnutrition, skin diseases, learning disabilities, developmental delays, and other illnesses. The one major feature that the program ‘flexes’ is the introduction of its ‘digital health card’ which will provide insights into parameters such as anaemia levels, height and nutrition status.

These details shall be stored in the student’s personal Ayushman Bharat Health Account (ABHA) ID, through nodal teachers and community health officers. These accounts will be accessible by both the students and their parents through the DHCs.

This Centre-State initiative comes in the wake of the CoWin data breach which put millions of Indians’ personal information at stake. According to Scroll, Rahul Sasi, the Chief Executive Officer of a digital threat analysis company based in Bengaluru, CloudSek, said that the data was compromised through the credentials of several health workers.

With the introduction of these health cards, a similar pattern can be perceived where intrinsic personal information shall be collected and according to one of its terms, the quarterly health report of the child shall be attached to their marksheet.

Such data breaches are no stranger to the incumbent Central government, as prior to the CoWin fiasco, similar infringements had been noticed on two separate occasions. The most recent was recorded from State Bank of India, wherefrom 7.9 million cardholders had lost their account privacy in a massive data breach in 2022. On the other hand, in 2018, the data breach of Aadhaar card holders had caused in the loss of 1.1 billion Indians’ identities.

In such a scenario, Modi’s Digital India is one made through mandate and not through choice.