Worldcoin, the ambitious cryptocurrency and digital identification project led by OpenAi's Sam Altman, has filed a lawsuit against Spain's data protection agency (AEPD). This just after the regulator temporarily prohibited him from continuing with the operations that he had been carrying out in various parts of the country.
The precautionary measure imposed by the Spanish authority prevents Worldcoin from continuing to scan people's irises for the next three months. If it does not comply with the measure, the cryptocurrency project is subject to a financial penalty that would amount to 20 million euros or 4% of its annual turnover.
However, the project's parent company, Tools for Humanity (TFH), took legal action against the order issued by the AEPD, according to a note published on the Worldcoin blog.
After learning of the precautionary measure imposed by the Spanish agency, the Worldcoin team pointed out that "Spain ignores the law of the European Union by removing us from the country,". They add that the cryptocurrency project complies with all laws and regulations governing the collection and transfer of biometric data , including the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
''We were disappointed that the Spanish regulator did not comply with the applicable European Union legislation. That's why we filed a lawsuit," said a company spokesperson.
He added that the lawsuit was a motion to suspend the order of the Spanish agency, and that this was presented before the Contentious-Administrative Chamber of the Superior Court of Justice of Spain, according to a Reuters report.
While the legal process lasts, iris scanning in exchange for cryptocurrencies was paralyzed in the Iberian country after several months of intense activity, mainly in shopping centers.
In the city of Zaragoza in northeastern Spain, the two large metal spheres, called Orb, that Worldcoin used to scan irises in exchange for a few tokens disappeared, at least from public view, as reported by local media.
The long lines of people waiting for their biometric data to be scanned also disappeared. And with this, the wave of popularity that the project had reached in Spain stopped, leading almost 1% of the country's population (400,000 users) to scan their eyeballs.
In the midst of this wave of popularity, the AEPD received 13 complaints denouncing aspects such as insufficient information, collection of data from minors or the lack of possibility of withdrawing the consent required by the company before scanning.
This led the regulatory agency to act in “exceptional circumstances” where they considered “necessary and proportionate” to adopt provisional measures aimed at the immediate cessation of this processing of personal data.
With all this, Spain is among the eight countries that is investigating the project.
