UK data watchdog looking into OpenAI boss Sam Altman’s crypto project By Proactive Investors
UK watchdog the Information Commissioner’s Office, which is in charge of upholding data protection and GDPR rules, has its eyes on Worldcoin, the cryptocurrency project launched by OpenAI boss Sam Altman.
“We note the launch of WorldCoin in the UK and will be making further enquiries,” a spokesperson for the ICO told Reuters.
Worldcoin, which was launched on Monday by Tools For Humanity, a company Altman co-founded in 2029, uses iris-scanning technology to create a digital passport of oneself.
To do this, Tools For Humanity is deploying 1,500 Orbs, biometric imaging devices built for the Worldcoin project to “verify humanness and uniqueness in a secure and privacy-preserving way”.
Altman has suggested that the Worldcoin project could help preserve people’s identity in a world where artificial intelligence will play an increasingly central role.
“If successful, we believe Worldcoin could drastically increase economic opportunity, scale a reliable solution for distinguishing humans from AI online while preserving privacy, enable global democratic processes, and eventually show a potential path to AI-funded UBI (Universal Basic Income),” reads the Worldcoin website.
The Ethereum-based WLD cryptocurrency is distributed to users who have their iris scanned for a digital passport.
WLD briefly spiked to US$3.3 when it launched on Monday. It has since fallen back to US$2.13.
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