Launched less than two weeks ago, the Worldcoin project has aroused excitement and suspicion around the world, as thousands of people flock to the registration site to have their eyes scanned by the glowing spherical “balls”.

Co-founded by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, this initiative enables the use of iris scanning and identity verification technologies to register millions of users globally.

Worldcoin requires citizens to trade their iris scans in exchange for digital IDs and, in some countries, gives out free cryptocurrency bonuses as part of its plan to create a “financial and identity network.”

Once the orb scanner captures each user’s iris, it converts the image into a unique numeric code called an iris code which, the company emphasizes, can only be used to prove a user’s identity.

“We’re on this mission to build the largest financial and identity community we can,” said Ricardo Macieira, general manager for Europe at Tools For Humanity, the San Francisco and Berlin-based firm behind the project.

Worldcoin’s website lists several possible applications of its technology, such as differentiating humans from artificial intelligence bots, enabling “global democratic processes”, and pointing out “potential paths” to universal basic income.

However, its critics have raised issues of privacy and data misuse.

Suspended in Kenya and under surveillance in other countries

Worldcoin says that more than two million people have registered during the two-year trial period in countries around the world. However, data watchdogs in the UK, France and Germany said they were investigating the project.

Meanwhile, on Wednesday, August 2, 2023, Kenya’s Ministry of Home Affairs said it had suspended local cryptocurrency project activities while government agencies assessed potential risks to public safety.

And regulators and privacy advocates have expressed their concerns about Worldcoin’s data collection, even taking into account that users give their consent.

The Bavarian State Data Protection Monitoring Office, which has jurisdiction in the European Union because Tools For Humanity has offices there, said it began investigating Worldcoin in November 2022 because of concerns about its large-scale processing of confidential data.

The company fought back, arguing on its website that the project is “completely private” and that biometric data is deleted or users can choose to store it in encrypted form.

With Reuters and EFE