“Worldcoin is misunderstood,” according to one of its developers

Accusations and concerns about the security of Worldcoin users’ biometric data are nothing more than a misinterpretation of the controversial cryptocurrency project. This is according to one of its developers, who is the only worker on this project in South Korea.

Speaking to the local press, Noah Kim, a worker at Tools For Humanity, the company behind Worldcoin, stated that the “biggest misunderstanding” around this project is that iris scanning poses a threat to people’s privacy since that information is at the mercy of the company.

Following the narrative of the project, he maintained that the only function of Worldcoin Orbs, devices through which people scan their iris, is verifying that someone is a real human being. It alleges that, after obtaining this information, it is encrypted and the rest of the data “is immediately deleted.”

Worldcoin is a cryptocurrency project created in 2019, which gained significant traction during 2023. This platform rewards users who decide to verify their identity by providing their biometric data with a handful of tokens. These people receive a type of monthly income, which recently saw red numbers due to the market price correction.

According to Kim, iris scanning is the most effective way to verify that users are real human beings. This since facial recognition is not reliable and fingerprints can be manipulated and even erased over time, in his opinion.

Thus, using human iris information “is the easiest and fastest way to verify humanity when you have up to 10 billion users,” Kim told The Korea Times.

The Worldcoin specialist affirms that people are “reluctant” to this project because the destination of the biometric data has not been clearly explained. He insists in this sense that this initiative “guarantees the anonymity” of people and that the data does not remain in the company.

“An important task”

On the other hand, Noah Kim explained that in current times, due to the sophistication that artificial intelligence has had, distinguishing human and non-human users on the web “is an important task.” “And its importance will only grow,” said the developer.

“When we log into certain websites, we often encounter puzzles to verify that we are humans, not robots. But AI is already sophisticated enough to penetrate these processes,” the specialist warned.

Next, he highlighted the Worldcoin project considering that they are not focused on cryptocurrencies. “What we care about is global identification,” Kim said.

The developer also spoke about the accusations made by the South Korean authorities to Worldcoin. Last March, the Asian country’s Personal Information Protection Commission notified that they would investigate this project in response to a series of complaints related to the collection and processing of personal information. According to Kim, Worldcoin will continue to fully cooperate with the investigation.

Along with South Korea, another dozen countries opened investigations against Worldcoin, precisely due to concerns on the management of people’s biometric data. There have even been cases where this project has been expelled, such as in Spain, Portugal, Kenya and Hong Kong. The latter, an Asian region that described iris scanning as an excessive, unfair and unnecessary practice, as reported by CriptoNoticias.

Whatever the case, Worldcoin has not stopped expanding. So far, almost 6 million people have had their iris scanned and the project It has a presence in more than 160 countries around the world. Some of them in Latin America, such as Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Mexico, where privacy alerts have also been raised.