Good day everyone,
I hope you are all well and having excellent day, welcome to CryptoGod-1’s blog on all things crypto. I am back once again writing about WorldCoin, as it seems to be constantly in the news. This time it is in reference to Kenya, which suspended the activities of WorldCoin in its country last week, and has now raided one of the companies warehouses.
Kenya Bite Back
The iris scanning company WorldCoin has had its project warehouse in Kenya raided by the local police in Nairobi, as the crypto project launched by OpenAI founder Sam Altman comes under increasing scrutiny. The raid was done in search of data, as the officers seized documents and machines to investigate stored data collected by the crypto project.
“The officers backed by multi-agency officials went to the offices along Mombasa Road armed with a search warrant and broke in Saturday before leaving with machines they believe stores data gathered by the firm.”
Only a week ago, on the 2nd of August 2023, the interior minister of Kenya announced that the nation would be starting an investigation against WorldCoin as part of their security, financial services and data protection agencies requirements within the nation. This investigation is aimed at the authenticity of Worldcoin’s activities, and the ministry suspended the project’s operations in the country at the same time. This was to stop WorldCoin collecting data within the nation for as long as the project is being investigated for potential privacy risks.
After the raid, the collected documents and machines were presented to the Directorate of Criminal Investigations headquarters for analysis. The data commissioner, Immaculate Kassait, noted:
“Tools for Humanity, the parent company of Worldcoin, failed to disclose its true intentions during registration,”
On top of that, the Interior Cabinet Secretary Kithure Kindiki (who was behind suspending the companies activities) appeared before the national parliament on Thursday the 3rd of August 2023 to outline the steps being taken as precautions against the company and the data they had already managed to get hold of:
“The aforesaid entity is not registered as a legal entity in Kenya.”
The Kenyan government has a strict and firm policy in terms of protecting and processing personal data without a valid reason, and this is considered a crime in the nation. The Kenyan Capital Markets Authority (CMA) have been concerned about the fact WorldCoin is not regulated or properly registered within the country. According to Kenya’s Data Commissioner, Immaculate Kassait, the project did not reveal its true intentions when it was taking part in the registration process.
WorldCoin's Defence
The company launched as a digital identification platform on the 24th of July 2023, and since then has been gathering people's information around the world via their iris scanning orbs. They claim to have been designed to distinguish real humans from artificial intelligence and bots, and will work as a human identification method.
However, since their launch the company has faced nothing but criticism. This is due to its unique signup requirements, which basically need users to interact with the main tool called the Orb. This will scan their iris and confirm the user is indeed human, and in return they get a "World ID" and some of the company’s own cryptocurrency, Worldcoin (WLD).
WorldCoin have stated they have all the measures in place to safeguard privacy and users data, with no personal data being stored. The critics of the company have questioned the ethical aspects of the project, with many privacy experts claiming that the sensitive data scanned from a person’s iris might get into the wrong hands.
In a recent interview for the project, co-founder Alex Blania stated that the company aims to open source a significant share of its hardware designs and protocol in order to enable “anybody to verify our dedication to user privacy and security.”
MIT Technology have investigated WorldCoin previously, and as part of interviewing participants engaged with Worldcoin’s onboarding process they discovered the results were quite bad. They reported:
“We found that the company’s representatives used deceptive marketing practices, collected more personal data than it acknowledged, and failed to obtain meaningful informed consent,”
Spain Adopting WorldCoin in Europe
Even thought there is much doubt and scepticism surrounding the project, it has gained major traction in Spain. In the Southern European nation WorldCoin is gaining roughly 20,000 new users a month, making it the fastest growing market within Europe. This has made the country the leading operational market for WorldCoin, and aligns to the nations rapid development of artificial intelligence. The nation has built itself up since 2020 to become the main hub for artificial intelligence in the European Union, and this is leading to the adoption of WorldCoin.
Once the project launched in Madrid, more than 150K people registered for the World ID over the space of a year. The project was making the most of its trial period in the nation, and with the expansion of the Orbs to Barcelona, more and more are expected to sign up to the project over the coming weeks and months.
Have a great day.
Peace. CryptoGod-1.
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