Company that collects iris data in exchange for cryptocurrencies returned to the asset

The store doors are open on a street in Lisbon, with signs well visible to the entrance where the word world can be read. Anyone who comes in there normally already knows what goes: lean eyes to an iris -reader machine, which also photographs the face, allowing the collection of biometric data that will then serve to prove that it is the corresponding human when performing financial transactions in the World App application, which is immediately discharged there, receiving, immediately 50 WordCoinsthe cryptocurrency created by the same company.

In March 2024, the National Data Protection Commission (CNPD) decided to suspend the exercise of the activity to the then WorldCoin. The argument was that the use of biometrics could undermine the safeguarding the rights to protect personal data. A year later, the now World returns to the asset.

The German -based company arrived in Portugal in 2022, launched by Tools for Humanity (TFH) – co -founded by OpenAi CEO Sam Altman, the ChatgPT creator – and soon began to use iris biometrics for digital identity verification. The goal would be to create the largest crypto ecosystem ever, intending to position as an incubator of a new global financial system.

Suddenly, in several Portuguese shopping centers were queues of people in front of the Strategically placed World newsstands. Many of those interested would be smaller, according to CNPD complaints in 2023. worldcoins In exchange for the iris, which could be converted into cash and transferred to personal bank accounts. At the time it would be equivalent to about 78 euros. They were told that the reading of the iris would be the guarantee that each user is a flesh and bone individual.

Since the iris is a unique and unchanging data of the person, crucial element of identity and privacy, with which it is possible, for example, to create false identities, the CNPD received several complaints and opened a process of investigations. In March 2024, like what also happened in Spain, he decided that World would have to suspend the activity in Portugal until all facts are determined.

After this deliberation, which accepted, World Foundation, the legal representative of the World, added to the process documents to demonstrate that the company has an establishment in the European Union, in concrete, the Zipcode GMBH in Erlangen, Bavaria, Germany.

In July 2024 CNPD deliberated that competence to analyze the process falls on the Bavarian Authority (Baylda) which, on December 19, 2024, concluded about the compliance of the World with the General Data Protection Regulation of the European Union. The German authority ordered the World to implement a procedure that would allow to delete the biometric data. « All users who have made their iris data available to the World will have, in the future, the unlimited possibility of seeing their right to erasure implemented. »then said Baylda President Michael Will.

Thus, World has returned to Portugal with the guarantee that the encryption of face and eyes images are only stored on the mobile phone where the app is discharged, taking only a few seconds to be erased. «Each iris code is different and does not reveal any personal information»says the world. The company also ensures that it does not sell or sell, personal or biometric data and that all are securely encrypted.

The Deco Proteste was one of the entities that warned CNPD. « It seems to us that the amount you can receive does not compensate for the problems that this sale may eventually bring in the future »read in the text sent to CNPD. The Citizens Citizens initiative warned that there is a very sensitive risk that the worldcoin Be a Ponzi scheme, where new users pay the old ones. And states: «The real value of worldcoin resides in your biometric data, which can be sold to third parties for profit. ‘

THE Sunrise He sent an email to the World Foundation with several questions, but without any answer until the closing of this edition. Banco de Portugal and PGR did not respond either. Only the Judicial Police reported that no investigation exists involving the World.