Worldcoin, the iris-scanning biometric project aiming to create an AI-funded Universal Basic Income, has ambitious goals of authenticating all humans online.

Worldcoin calls itself the “world’s largest identity and financial public network, open to everyone regardless of their country, background or economic status.”

According to Worldcoin’s website, World ID is “a privacy-preserving digital identity designed to help solve important, identity-based challenges, including proving an individual’s unique personhood.”

Worldcoin’s goal is to distribute “tokens” to every human on Earth.

Give your biometrics, and we’ll provide free crypto.

Nothing can go wrong with that, right?

The company, founded by Alex Blania and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, hopes to achieve this digitized, socialistic utopia with a physical device called “The Orb” to identify every human.

“Worldcoin’s global rollout of its Orbs resembles a digital, totalitarian slave state occupied by zombified subjects,” WLTReport noted.

WATCH:

WLTReport shared remarks by co-founder Alex Blania:

Talk about lining up for your digital enslavement!

When asked how Worldcoin works, Blania said:

“So when you sign up as a user, right now, you basically download an app that’s called World App, which is a non-custodial wallet. You download the app. You show up in front of a physical device, and that physical device basically issues you your World ID, which is a kind of a digital identity that you can use to anonymously verify the different services.”

“And people, of course, are worried about what The Orb means for surveillance and privacy. How do you respond to these concerns?” CoinDesk asked.

Blania replied:

So my high-level response is that something like World ID will eventually exist, meaning that you will need to verify [that you are human] on the internet, whether you like it or not. I think that’s certainly going to happen with the progress in AI. It’s probably going to happen in the next couple of years.

And Worldcoin, I think, is the only path that we currently have that can get to that level of being accepted by the powerful players, and still be completely privacy-preserving and not rely on government infrastructure. And it’s all open source — all of those things that crypto theoretically loves.

Worldcoin claims it will ‘preserve your privacy and not rely on government infrastructure.’

So, they’re attempting to ease potential users worried the government may obtain their data.

However, a Reuters report revealed this is not the case.

Worldcoin will have zero qualms sharing your data with third parties.

“Worldcoin will expand its operations to sign up more users globally and aims to allow other organisations to use its iris-scanning and identity-verifying technology, a senior manager for the company behind the project told Reuters,” Reuters reports.

Ricardo Macieira, general manager for Europe at Tools For Humanity, the San Francisco and Berlin-based company behind the project, told Reuters exactly what the project intends to accomplish.

From Reuters:

“I don’t think we are going to be the ones generating universal basic income. If we can do the infrastructure that allows for governments or other entities to do so we would be very happy,” Macieira said.

Companies could pay Worldcoin to use its digital identity system, for example if a coffee shop wants to give everyone one free coffee, then Worldcoin’s technology could be used to ensure that people do not claim more than one coffee without the shop needing to gather personal data, Macieira said.

“The idea is that as we build this infrastructure and that we allow other third parties to use the technology.”

In future, the technology behind the iris-scanning orb will be open-source, Macieira added.

“The idea is that anyone can in the future build their own orb and use it to benefit the community that it’s aiming for,” he said.

Worldcoin’s goal is to build the infrastructure for a digital prison.

They’ll outsource your biometrics to companies or governments hoping to develop a cashless society.

Worldcoin currently has 2.2 million signups and has launched in various countries, including Indonesia, France Japan, Germany, Spain, and the United Kingdom.

However, one African country has taken a stand against Worldcoin and will investigate the project.

“The Kenyan Ministry of the Interior last week suspended the controversial tech firm Worldcoin and any similar entities from operating in the country,” Zero Hedge reports.

The Kenyan Ministry of Interior announced Worldcoin’s suspension after thousands of Kenyans engaged with the iris-scanning tech firm at shopping malls.

“Relevant security, financial services and data protection agencies have commenced inquiries and investigations to establish the authenticity and legality of the aforesaid activities, the safety and protection of the data being harvested, and how the harvesters intend to use the data,” a statement from the Ministry read.

Kenyans.co.ke reports:

Interior CS Kithure Kindiki pointed out that the government would undertake all measures to assure public safety and the integrity of the financial transactions involving such a large number of citizens be satisfactorily provided upfront.

Further, appropriate action will be taken on any natural or juristic person who furthers, aids, abets or otherwise engages in or is connected with the activities until the government deems WorldCoin is safe.

Following the directive, police officers were deployed to disperse hundreds queuing at KICC, Nairobi for the exercise.

The directive comes minutes after ICT Eliud Owalo had stated that the government was yet to kick out the international company as it had not broken any laws.

During an interview on NTV, Owalo confirmed that the government was keenly observing operations of WorldCoin to understand its operations and data protection measures.

He pointed out that WorldCoin targeted loopholes in Kenya’s data protection laws to launch operations in the country.

Zero Hedge noted:

In response to the ban, WorldCoin co-founder Alex Blania claimed that the company’s intentions are above board.

“Tools for Humanity (TFH) has paused World ID verifications in Kenya as we continue to work with local regulators to address their questions. We apologise to everyone in Kenya for the delay,” he stated.

Worldcoin’s stated purpose is to build a global identification system using iris scans, which can prove that a person is human. The company argues that in the future, when Artificial Intelligence (AI) is ‘fully functional,’ it will be difficult to determine whether a subject is human or machine.

 

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