Is the world’s biometric ID model a threat to self-confidence?

The Crypto industry is not a stranger for the dispute, yet some projects have examined more than Sam Altman’s world, known as the first worldCowine.

The world keeps itself as a tool for financial inclusion, promising to verify human specificity through IRIS scan and distribute its WLD tokens globally. However, critics argue that the biometric methods of the project are aggressive, highly centralized, and on obstacles with decentralization and ethos of digital privacy.

At the center of criticism, it is claimed that the biometric identification system may not be really decentralized when they rely on ownership hardware, closed certification methods and data pipelines.

“Decentralization is not just a technical architecture,” the co-founder of the Holonim Foundation, Chhaya El Demty, told the coinlagraph. “This is a philosophy that prefer user control, privacy and self-confusion. The world’s biometric model is naturally on obstacles with this ethos.”

L Dematey argued that despite using equipment such as multipraty computation (MPC) and zero-knowledge (ZK), the world’s dependence on custom hardware- ORB-and centralized code reduces the perpetuation decentralization that claims for the champion.

He said, “This is by design to achieve its goals of unique identity of individual humans. This concentration of strength risks that creates a single point of failure and control reduces the promise of decentralization,” he said.

When he reached out for the comment, a spokesman in the world pushed back against these claims. “The world does not use centralized biometric infrastructure,” he said, the world app is non-custodial, meaning that users are under the control of their digital assets and world IDs.

The project stated that once the orb generates an iris code, “Iris photo will be sent to your phone as end-to-end encrypted data bundle and will be immediately removed from the orb.” The IRIS code, he claimed, is processed with unknown to multiporting computation, so “no personal data is stored.”

Evin McMulan, co -founder of the Prevido ID and Arabs.

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A pattern of Tech Overch?

El Damel attracted a parallel between openiAI’s “unconscious user data” and large -scale scraping of the world’s collection of biometric information.

He argued that the two reflect a pattern of aggressive data acquisitions as innovation, warning that such practices at the risk of destroying privacy and normalizing monitoring under the banner of progress.

El Damel claimed, “It is difficult to remember the irony here.” “Openai built its foundation by scrapping the huge amounts of unconscious user data to train its models, and now the WorldCoin is taking the same aggressive data acquisition approach to biometric identity.”

In 2023, a square-action suit Filed In California, openi and Microsoft were accused of scrapping 300 billion words from the Internet without consent, including millions of users, such as personal data of children.

In 2024, a alliance of Canadian media outlets including Canadian Press and CBC, Lawsed on To train Copygpt, Openai to allegedly use his content without the authority to claim copyright violations.

The world, however, rejects this comparison, emphasizes that it is a separate entity from Openai. The company stated that it neither sells personal data nor stores personal data, which cited the use of privacy-conservation technologies such as multiporting computation and zero-knowledge evidence.

The investigation also extends to the world’s user onboarding. The project states that it ensures informed consent through translated guide, an in-app lurn module, brochure and a support center.

However, critics are suspicious. “People in developing countries, who are mainly targeted to this point, are easy to bribe and often do not understand the risks associated with ‘selling’ this individual data,” El Dematey warned.

Since its launch in July 2023, many global regulators have pushed back the world’s operations, with governments such as Germany, Kenya and Brazil express concern over the potential risks to protect biometric data of users.

In the most recent shock, the company faced challenges in Indonesia, as local regulators temporarily suspended their registration certificates.

Connected: ‘Man can tell when this is a human’ – the community made fun of the worldcon’s Orb Mini

Digital exclusion risk

As a biometric system such as the world’s advantages traction, questions about its long -term implications are emerging. While the company promotes its model as an inclusive, critics say the dependence on iris scan to unlock services can deepen global inequality.

“When biometric data becomes a condition to access basic services, it effectively creates a two-tier society,” said El Demeti. “Those who prepare (or force) to get their most sensitive information … while those who refuse are excluded.”

The world said that its protocol does not require biometric enrollment for basic participation. “You can still use an unacceptable world ID for some purposes, even if you don’t go to any orb,” the system uses ZKPS to prevent addition of actions from a specific ID or biometric data.

There are also concerns that the world can become a surveillance tool – especially in the totalitarian rule – by centralizing biometric data in a way that can attract misuse by powerful actors.

The world dismisses these claims, stating that its ID protocol is “open source, permitted” and designed, so government applications also cannot return the user’s activity to their biometric data.