worldcointhe company of OpenAI CEO Samt Altman, which offered cryptocurrencies for the ‘moderate’ price of scanning your iris and giving away your biometric information, changes its strategy. From now on it will simply be called World and will allow users to verify their identity with their passport. The option of scan eyes of users is still valid, but relegated to the background.
In April of this year, the Spanish Data Protection Agency (AEPD) forced the company to cancel its activity in Spain on a precautionary basis. More than 400,000 people had already signed up for the experiment. Worldwide, Worldcoin had scanned the irises of nearly seven million people. “For free money, I don’t even ask”a user declared to this newspaper with a laugh. In two minutes you could get 10 worldcoins, which in exchange were equivalent to about 60 euros. This same user indicated that, when he went through the scanner, he was not informed why the companies wanted his biometric data, nor did they ensure that he was of legal age.
This practice, which is attractive but hides many risks by requiring sensitive user data, is being investigated in France and Germany, and in Kenya these eye scanners have even been banned because it is not clear whether the country’s legislation was violated. The iris is biometric data. This means that it allows a person to be identified without any room for error. Exactly like fingerprints. According to the regulations, it can only be collected when there is explicit and informed consent, which in the case of Worldcoin was not done, at least in our country.
Universal identification system
However, despite the controversy generated in Spain, the company’s objective has not changed. Founded in 2019, World aspires to create a universal identification system, a code that identifies any human being on the network and distinguishes it from bots or artificial intelligences. To achieve this, the company has until now opted to create a unique code based on the biometric information of each person’s iris.
And although they have not placed much emphasis, the company has shown a new version of its scanner, faster and that will allow the company’s presence to be extended to more countries, such as Latin America. For those countries where this practice generates controversy, or is directly paralyzed, World will allow users to present their passport if it is equipped with an NFC chip for automatic reading, and therefore contains digital information with a photograph and fingerprints of the person.
What is not clear is whether World will once again generate kilometer-long queues at the points where they are established, because its cryptocurrency has plummeted in recent months and is now barely worth two euros.
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