TL; DR
Full story
Do you remember Worldcoin?
They are about to be expelled from Spain and Portugal!
Not sure what we’re talking about? Allow us to explain…
Worldcoin is a crypto project founded by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, designed to prove a person’s humanity online, in a world of AI. everywhere.
The company requires a one-time iris scan by a sphere-like bot that:
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Verifies that you are human (or at least in possession of a human eyeball)
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Then rewards you for being human by giving you $WLD
All this while using zk-proofs to protect your biodata.
…but protected or not – it all sounds a bit dystopian, doesn’t it?
From every discussion we’ve ever had, when someone hears Worldcoin’s pitch, in their head it translates something like this:
“Give us a scan of your eyeballs (we’ll keep it private, promise!) – and in return we’ll give you some magical internet money…”
…and in response to such a pitch it is logical to think:
“The perceived risk (giving my biodata to an opaque private tech company) does not outweigh the potential benefits (earning a little-known cryptocurrency).”
Well, it turns out that it’s not just our friends, family and colleagues who think this way, but also Spanish and Portuguese lawmakers.
(They just ordered Worldcoin to stop all data collection in their country).
The Portuguese government specifically believes that Worldcoin violates the data protection rights of its citizens (but they also fear that this collected information will be used maliciously in some way in the future).
And we can’t blame them!
We write about zk-proofs all the time and believe they are robust in protecting personal information.
And yet: There is no way we would do a Worldcoin iris scan.