Key information:
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Iris scanning is of concern in Latin America, Europe and Asia.
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Argentina and Spain are amongst these scrutinizing the Worldcoin undertaking.
Worldcoin, the controversial undertaking that provides a handful of tokens to customers who confirm their humanity by scanning their irises, is already the topic of investigation by authorities in at the very least 8 international locations on this planet, most lately South Korea.
In a press release, the Fee for the Safety of Private Data of the Asian nation indicated that since final Thursday, March 29, February they started investigations into Worldcoinin response to various complaints associated to the gathering and processing of non-public info.
In accordance with the South Korean authoritythere are at the very least 10 locations in that nation the place individuals are scanning their irises, by means of Orbs, info that was confirmed by the Worldcoin group to that authorities entity. On the official Worldcoin web site, nonetheless, South Korea doesn’t seem as one of many international locations the place there are at present operational Orbs.
In accordance with what has been indicated, the Fee plans to analyze the assortment and processing of confidential info, in addition to the switch of non-public information overseas. All this, below the South Korean Private Data Safety Regulation.
The Private Data Safety Fee additional notified that if any violation is recognized, “measures might be taken in accordance with related legal guidelines and rules.”
The eye on Worldcoin
With South Korea, 8 international locations are turning their consideration to Worldcoin and its specific manner of verifying whether or not a consumer is an actual individual or a bot, which it does by means of scanning the iris. This can be a observe that raises privateness alarms as a result of it’s extremely private information and will lend itself to id falsification.
In accordance with the pc engineer and cybersecurity specialist, José Alejandro Casamitjana, scanning the iris “has the identical hazard as copying the identification card,” since that is distinctive and unalterable information, which, when transferred, management is misplaced. about him.
Since Worldcoin was launched in the course of final 12 months, the data and private information regulatory authorities of France, Germany, the UK, Kenya, Nigeria, Argentina, Spain and, now, South Korea; discover out intimately what the undertaking does with biometric information of the customers.
Up to now, solely Kenya has suspended Worldcoin actions. As CriptoNoticias reported in August 2023, the Ministry of the Inside of the African nation determined to ban undertaking operations attributable to information privateness issues and safety dangers to Kenyans.
Earlier than South Korea, Spain was the final nation to announce investigations into Worldcoin, exactly due to the problem of iris scanning. The info safety company confirmed to this medium that there have been 4 complaints associated to the dealing with of knowledge by the cryptocurrency undertaking which they had been attending.
