An regulatory authority in Portugal has ordered Worldcoin, the project based on “proof of personality” that assigns cryptographic tokens to individuals after scanning their irises to confirm their humanity, to cease the collection of biometric data.
Let’s see below all the details.
Summary
The regulatory authority in Portugal behind Worldcoin’s decision
As anticipated, Worldcoin is facing another challenge in Europe regarding the project “Proof of Personhood” which aims to increase people’s registration by scanning their eyes to prove their humanity.
The Portuguese data regulatory authority has ordered Worldcoin to suspend the collection of personal data for 90 days, as reported by Reuters.
The project, strongly linked to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, was suspended last month in Spain for a maximum period of three months.
According to the report, the CNPD (the data protection authority of Portugal) stated that there was a high risk to the data protection rights of citizens.
Justifying thus an urgent intervention to avoid serious damages. The CNPD reported that more than 300,000 people in Portugal have provided their biometric data to Worldcoin.
Tools for Humanity, the latest software collaborator behind the Worldcoin project, stated via email that the project complies with all laws and regulations regarding the collection and transfer of biometric data.
Jannick Preiwisch, data protection officer at the Worldcoin Foundation, stated:
“The Worldcoin Foundation fully respects the role and responsibilities of data protection authorities, in particular the CNPD in Portugal”.
He then added that the CNPD’s report raised several issues for the first time, including the reporting of registrations of minors in Portugal, on which the foundation has zero tolerance and is working to address in any case.
“Personal Custody”: direct control of users’ biometric data
In an effort to improve user control over their personal data, Worldcoin has recently launched “Personal Custody”, a new process that eliminates the storage and encryption of people’s biometric data.
Previously, users could choose to allow Worldcoin to store their personal data. Tools for Humanity executive Tiago Sada stated the following last week:
“Even though before everything was deleted by default, now surely the fact that users have control over what to do with their data, definitely gives you that peace of mind, not having to trust anyone.”
When people have their eye bulbs scanned by Worldcoin, they establish a global ID and receive the cryptocurrency, the WLD token. According to its website, Worldcoin has registered more than 4.5 million people in 120 countries.
The Worldcoin Foundation makes the Orb software open source
The Worldcoin Foundation has recently announced the release of the main components of its Orb software as open source.
This announcement is accompanied by the revelation that the software is now publicly available on GitHub, using the widely respected dual MIT/Apache 2.0 license.
The decision to make the main components of the software Orb open source marks a significant step forward in the Worldcoin Foundation’s commitment to transparency and community-driven development.
With this move, the Foundation aims to promote collaboration and innovation within the broader technology community, while also strengthening trust and responsibility in the development process.
According to a recent post on the Worldcoin Foundation’s blog, the main components of the newly released Orb software complete the previously released hardware and iris recognition repositories.
This full version is designed to provide developers with the tools and resources they need to fully understand and contribute to Orb’s image processing capabilities.
Furthermore, the public availability of these key components represents a crucial milestone in the Foundation’s efforts to ensure the transparency and verifiability of Orb’s privacy information.
By making the internal functioning of the software accessible to everyone, the Worldcoin Foundation allows users to independently evaluate the privacy and security features of the Orb software.
