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Worldcoin, a crypto-based biometrics project co-founded by OpenAI’s Sam Altman, has been found to have violated European Union (EU) data protection regulations, resulting in data deletion requests from German regulators.
The Bavarian State Office for Data Protection Supervision (BayLDA) has issued a corrective measure against the company, citing non-compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
The technology is built by Tools for Humanity, a San Francisco-based company. World’s devices, called “Orbs,” scan users’ irises and generate unique codes.
Worldcoin, now known as World, creates digital identities using iris and facial scans. These identities are designed to prove users are human rather than AI bots.
The authority ruled that World’s earlier identification procedures did not meet GDPR standards and mandated the company begin a GDPR-compliant data deletion process.
The BayLDA’s several-month investigation into World concluded that its practices posed “fundamental data protection risks” to many individuals.
World has since discontinued this approach and deleted all personal data from iris codes. The company emphasized that the current system ensures privacy through advanced cryptographic methods.
BayLDA’s investigation focused on when World stored iris codes in a centralized database. The authority found this practice non-compliant with GDPR.
However, earlier this year, Spain and Portugal temporarily banned the technology following complaints about data privacy concerns. World, formerly Worldcoin, launched World Chain, an Ethereum layer-2 blockchain, on Oct. 17. The network serves its 15 million verified users with a “World ID” obtained via iris scanning.
World operates in several countries, including Germany, Japan, the US, and South Korea. It plans to expand further into Ireland, the UK, France, and Italy.