Simon Hunter
SPAIN’S Data Protection Agency (AEPD) has temporarily blocked a US-based firm called Worldcoin from its activities, after it emerged that the company has been scanning people’s irises in high resolution in exchange for cryptocurrency.
The company has been carrying out these activities since last summer, and has scanned the eyeballs of some 400,000 people, according to Spanish daily El Pais.
The AEPD has intervened after receiving at least 13 complaints about users being offered insufficient information, the collection of minors’ data, and the inability of users to withdraw their consent.
The agency has also announced that Worldcoin is being investigated by the European Data Protection Board after a request to do so was filed by Spain.
The AEPD has taken action against Tools for Humanity Corporation, a German company that has been working for Worldcoin to carry out the scans.
The company has been notified that it can no longer collect more scans, nor can it do anything with the data that it has already collected from 400,000 people.
If these orders are not respected, Worldcoin could be facing a fine ranging from €20 million to 4% of its annual turnover.
In recent weeks, more and more people have been submitting to the scans after news spread that the value of the Worldcoin digital currency had risen by a factor of three, to more than €6. Thanks to this, the 13 coins offered by the company in exchange for an iris scan was as high as €80.
The Worldcoin app can be used to store cryptocurrency but also can be used for identification purposes. The company calls the iris scan a ‘proof of humanity’, and offers the user the option of creating a unique code based on the data from their eyeball and then destroying the image, or the preservation of the photo.
But it is still less than clear exactly how these scans are being used, which is what has prompted the fears over data protection.
American whistleblower Edward Snowden raised fears about the company’s practices several years ago.
“This looks like it produces a global (hash) database of people’s iris scans (for ‘fairness’), and waves away the implications by saying ‘we deleted the scans!’ he wrote on X (formerly Twitter) back in October 2021. “Yeah, but you save the *hashes* produced by the scans. Hashes that match *future* scans. Don’t catalogue eyeballs,” he concluded.
The scans have, so far, mostly attracted young people who are keen to make some money, according to Spanish press reports.
A report this week in daily El Confidencial recounted how there have been long queues in recent days outside exchanges where cryptocurrencies can be redeemed for cash.
The freeze on Worldcoin’s activities, however, could see these queues thin.
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