Worldcoin, now rebranded as World, is a project of Alex Blania and OpenAI Sam Altman’s “Tools for Humanity” (the way that tech capitalists use words like “humanity” is itself inhumane). They are rolling out their newly updated Orb, and my recommendation is the same as it was when I first spoke of these two years ago. I recommend against having your eyeball and retina scanned whenever possible.
[The Orb will take your identity away.]
I will continue referring to this as the Worldcoin Orb (as opposed to their rebranded name World Orb) because one must be reminded of their tech bro origins to also remember its darker capitalist purpose.
The Worldcoin Orb has been around for a few years, but it recently made its debut in the United States Empire, which means there are many that are flocking to have their biometrics taken from them.
Lest anyone forget, the Worldcoin Orb was even banned in a few countries because of privacy concerns. The Orb then went under the radar for a period but has resurfaced in the United States, redesigned and rebranded, perhaps in the hopes that they can get more eyeballs.
Essentially, Worldcoin wants to establish a baseline to verify that individuals are unique and human by assigning each person an identifier called WorldID. The way to receive a unique identifier is a physical ball (pictured above) called the Orb, which scans the iris. In order to get a WorldID, they do not require the typical data points such as name, address, social security number, email, or phone number. However, they do take a scan of the registrant’s iris. Each unique iris pattern is then translated through machine learning into a unique numeric representation, an iris code.
Their goal is also to create a global transactional platform that is securely tied to individuals. As of two years ago, already millions of people in over 120 countries signed up for a WorldID.
Here are some of my concerns. The Orb supposedly only keeps information locally, so it remains on the Orb and is deleted after, unless you opt in to have it retained. But the Orb itself must still be connected to a network or database because it is comparing iris patterns to other iris patterns to ensure that they are unique.
They state that all the registrant’s biometric data is processed and deleted, while only the iris code remains. Here is the troubling part about even this. An enormous amount of data is contained within iris codes. Think about password hacks. Even with password breaches in the past that have been encrypted or even hashed, hackers have been able to brute force access to accounts with only password lists to access the data within the accounts themselves.
These Orbs contain the iris code attached to an identifying WorldID, which means that if there is a breach (there will be) the hacker could grab demographic, biometric, and statistical data at an entirely new level than if they were to just obtain passwords.
Research shows that iris scans alone can reveal race and gender. So there are imaginable and unimaginable vulnerabilities to be exploited. Beyond breach issues, there are also sharing concerns for any database of biometrics and data.
Even with crypto wallets that do not have any obvious identifying information, hacks have happened that can tie transactions to specific individuals. There are multiple exploits that are possible through the platform, code, hardware, and databases. And of course, there are the humans, us, that often forget to lock our doors. Even with sufficiently secure technology and programming, we will continue to do human things.
Their privacy policies have stated they may share information with law enforcement officials or other third parties. This can be even more nefarious than if a stray hacker accessed this information.
Also, as with many apps and websites on phones and computers, if the WorldID app is used to store this information and for transactions, then Worldcoin and its companies can capture a wealth of data such as location, cookies, IP address, habits, and more from the device itself.
Finally, and perhaps the most often overlooked reason to not use the Orb, is that we simply do not need a transactional system that is based on an iris scan. The technology to ensure protection does not match the urgency with which these tech companies are pushing biometric databases.
Thus, I still recommend against having your eyeball scanned when possible.
Even more so, I highly recommend against having your eyeball scanned by the Worldcoin Orb.
Stay private and secure out there, everyone.
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