Worldcoin fined 1.1 billion won for illegal iris info collection involving 30,000 users

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Worldcoin fined 1.1 billion won for illegal iris info collection involving 30,000 users

Published: 26 Sep. 2024, 19:07

An Orb, an iris scanner for Worldcoin, is installed at a cafe in Seoul. [YONHAP]

Worldcoin, a cryptocurrency business based on iris biometrics and co-founded by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, was fined 1.1 billion won ($827,689) on Thursday for illegally collecting the iris information of some 30,000 users in Korea and transferring the data overseas.

During its plenary session, the Personal Information Protection Commission (PIPC) decided to impose the fine on Worldcoin, following an investigation launched in response to a complaint in February regarding its iris information collection, officials said.

Worldcoin, launched in July last year, pays "WLD" tokens to users in exchange for having their irises scanned using its orb-shaped iris scanner. Once identified as human, users are assigned a "World ID" to create an online wallet for storing their tokens.

As of September, 29,991 users in Korea had their irises authenticated for Worldcoin.

The PIPC's investigation found that the Worldcoin Foundation and Tools for Humanity (TFH) — the technology developer for the business — failed to provide users with essential information about the purpose of the data collection, as well as the duration for which the information would be stored and used, when gathering their iris data.

The two entities were also found to have failed to notify users when transferring their personal data overseas, including to Germany, the commission said.

Yonhap