The Hong Kong Office of the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data (PCPD) has banned Worldcoin from collecting data in the region over concerns about privacy violations, according to a May 22 notice.
The privacy regulator claimed that Worldcoin collected iris and facial images of 8,302 residents using an iris scanning device. This data collection was intended to verify the user’s identity and generate iris codes in exchange for WLD tokens. Worldcoin has repeatedly confirmed that biometric data is hashed, meaning no iris scan images are stored. However, the terms and conditions claim that users can ‘opt in’ to share Iris images to help Worldcoin improve its system.
According to the regulator, these actions violated local privacy laws. There stood:
“The PCPD believed that the facial and iris images collected by the Worldcoin project were unnecessary, excessive and contrary to DPP requirements.”
Additionally, the regulator criticized Worldcoin for not providing enough information to users, which hindered informed consent. The study found that Worldcoin’s privacy statement was not available in Chinese, making it inaccessible to non-English speaking participants. The PCPD added:
“The Privacy Statement was not available in Chinese at the relevant time. The PCPD believed that participants whose native language was Chinese would not be able to clearly understand the relevant policies, practices and terms of the Worldcoin project, and therefore there was a lack of transparency.
Notably, this enforcement action against Worldcoin is consistent with recent actions taken by other countries. Spain, Portugal and Buenos Aires in Argentina have also taken action against the crypto project over similar privacy violations.
However, despite these regulatory hurdles across borders, Wordlcoin adoption continues to rise. In April, World App, the first native wallet for the crypto project, reached 10 million users in less than 12 months after launch.
Improving privacy
Worldcoin has recently received praise for its data privacy efforts, including praise from Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin.
In March, co-founder Alex Blania announced that Worldcoin had open sourced the core software of its ORB technology. This move was accompanied by the introduction of new features that allow users to monitor their data usage.
Blania also highlighted Worldcoin’s commitment to working with regulators to improve their operations.