Under Fire Worldwide: Critics and Regulators Target Altman’s Biometric Venture

Sam Altman's biometric cryptocurrency project, World Network, is causing serious concern among privacy advocates ahead of its launch in the US. Activists are wary of the system's data collection and protection methods, which use iris scans in exchange for cryptocurrency. FactoryDAO CEO Nick Almond wrote the following on his X account:"Worldcoin is the opposite of privacy. It's a trap."While the project is positioned as a defender of user privacy in an era of proliferating artificial intelligence, it has already faced numerous regulatory challenges around the world.The use of iris scanning technology and the token payment scheme, formerly known as Worldcoin, is now being investigated by authorities in India, South Korea, Italy, Colombia, Argentina, Portugal, Kenya, and Indonesia. Spain, Hong Kong, and Brazil have banned the project.Using World within the U.S. could be the biggest test for CEO Sam Altman, as privacy concerns in the U.S. are compounded by a complex regulatory landscape that differs from state to state.Differences in privacy laws could leave World users vulnerable to discriminationOn April 30, Altman announced that World will operate in "key innovation centers" in six U.S. cities: Atlanta, Austin, Los Angeles, Miami, Nashville, and San Francisco. Users will be able to scan their irises at these centers, providing World with unique biometric tokens.These markers, according to World, can be used for verification when interacting with others on digital platforms.But as World expands into the U.S., the uncertain regulatory landscape could scare people away and make it harder for the platform to gain user trust."There is no single federal law in the U.S. that specifically regulates biometric data (such as iris scans)," Andrew Rossow, a cybersecurity attorney with Rossow Law, told Cointelegraph.Indeed, the laws vary from state to state. Two of the states in which World will operate – Texas and California – have some form of legal protection for biometric data. Users in the other three states – Georgia, Tennessee, and Florida – will have to rely on federal law, as there are no state-specific rules for iris scanning there.But even having a state law doesn't guarantee protection. There is no private right of action regarding biometric data in Texas-only the state attorney general can enforce the law on the capture or use of biometric identifiers."The effectiveness of user data protection, as applied to World, depends almost entirely on the Texas attorney general-their priorities, resources, and willingness to act," Rossow said.A more aggressive attorney general can provide stronger protections, while "a less aggressive administration may lower enforcement priorities, leaving consumers vulnerable to information misuse."The potential vulnerability of such protocols is one of the key factors driving activist efforts against systems like World.Privacy International, a group backing a lawsuit in Kenya against World, says:"The absence of a robust legal framework and strong safeguards, biometric technologies pose a serious threat to privacy and personal security, as their use can be expanded to facilitate discrimination, profiling, and mass surveillance."Back in 2021, Amnesty International expressed concern about discrimination and the use of questionable methodologies in biometric systems. Such systems, they said, can "infer and make predictions about things like people's gender, emotions, or other personal characteristics, while suffering from serious, fundamental flaws in their scientific underpinnings. This means that the conclusions they draw about us are often invalid, in some cases even embodying eugenic theories of phrenology and physiognomy."Not everyone is convinced of the validity of privacy advocates' concerns. Tomasz Stańczak, co-executive director of the Ethereum Foundation, said he spent "over 100 hours" analyzing World, which is being built on the Ethereum network. He added that the project "looked very promising and much more secure and privacy-oriented than my intuition initially suggested."Paul Dylan-Ennis, an Ethereum researcher and academic, said that he thinks World's technology is "probably strong in terms of privacy," but acknowledged that the aesthetics may put people off: "There's just some sort of elusive 'Black Mirror' atmosphere to the whole thing."World faces bans around the worldWorld relies on users in America, but other countries around the world are increasingly investigating, restricting, or outright banning the company.In 2023, regulators in India, South Korea, Kenya, Germany, and Brazil began investigating the company's data collection practices. Spain became the first country to completely ban World's data collection in March 2024.Spain's data protection agency said the decision was based on reports from Spanish citizens. It claimed that Orb operators provided "insufficient information, collected data from minors, and did not even allow for the withdrawal of consent."Following the ban, World published a blog post claiming it was "operating legally in all countries where it is available."Global regulators disagreed. Hong Kong followed Spain's lead in May 2024 and ordered World to cease operations because it was allegedly violating the city-state's Personal Data Privacy Ordinance.Further allegations of improper data collection practices followed, and several countries, such as Germany and Kenya, ordered World to delete the data of thousands of users, while Colombia and Argentina imposed heavy fines.In January 2025, Brazil's National Data Protection Authority banned World entirely, citing concerns about the irreversible nature of data collection and the potential to manipulate economically disadvantaged people with the promise of cryptocurrency for their personal data.Despite protests in various countries, the identity system is gaining momentum. In Japan, World has now entered the online dating market.Spencer Rascoff, CEO of Match Group, which includes the dating app Tinder, announced on May 1 that Tinder will be testing the World identity system in Japan, "giving users a privacy-focused way to prove they are real people."Integration in Japan has yet to begin, but since Tinder is the most popular dating app in Japan, it provides a major use case for World's platform. The app has been downloaded 1.38 million times in 2024 alone.If World were able to partner with Tinder in the US, it would acquire 7.8 million monthly active users. If it expanded to similar services like Bumble or Hinge – the next two most popular dating apps in the country – World would capture 67% of the US online dating market, including the personal, unique identities of tens of millions of users.But privacy rights in the U.S. are far from settled. In Texas, one of the states where World plans to operate, Google recently paid $1.4 billion to the state after settling two lawsuits accusing the firm of tracking users' search and location data and collecting facial recognition information.In Illinois and New York, biometric firms are facing litigation while lawmakers take action to limit biometric data collection.