what happen?
South Korea's Personal Information Protection Commission (PIPC) recently imposed a fine of 1.1 billion won (approximately NT$26.45 million) on the digital identity recognition project Worldcoin and its development company Tools For Humanity.
The reason is that the two companies are collecting personal biometric data of Korean users, including iris scans, without obtaining user consent in accordance with the law, and failing to comply with relevant provisions of the Personal Information Protection Act.
Even under regulatory investigations from many countries, Worldcoin continues to expand. Recently, the team announced that it will launch its iris verification "Orb" device in Guatemala, Malaysia and Poland.
What regulations did WorldCoin violate?
According to the investigation results of the South Korean Personal Information Protection Commission, when World Coin collected biometric data, it did not "clearly explain" the purpose and retention period of the data to users, nor did it inform that the data would be transferred overseas.
However, South Korea's Personal Information Protection Law clearly requires that when conducting international data transfers, companies must inform users of the country to which the data will be transferred, and provide the name and contact information of the recipient. However, neither World Coin nor Tools For Humanity has implemented this.
The Personal Information Protection Commission of South Korea stated that the initial consent form for WorldCoin was only available in English, which limited the understanding of local users. The Korean version will not be launched until March 2024, so Korean users before that may not fully know their data. How will it be handled.
In addition, according to foreign media "Cointelegraph", Tools For Humanity's system lacks a complete age verification mechanism, allowing minors under the age of 14 to complete registration and iris scanning, which violates South Korea's relevant regulations for the protection of minors. . At the same time, WorldCoin also lacks a method for users to request deletion of iris data.
Worldcoin continues to expand despite regulatory investigations
Worldcoin believes that the collection of iris data is used to prove that the user is a human and prevent repeated registration, rather than to identify specific individuals, so it is anonymous data. However, the South Korean Personal Information Protection Commission rejected this statement, emphasizing that iris is essentially unique and unchangeable data directly related to an individual, and therefore cannot be considered anonymous.
In fact, this is not the first time that Worldcoin has faced problems due to the collection of biometric data. In May this year, Hong Kong also raised privacy concerns against it, accusing the platform of lacking transparent data protection measures, especially in how data is collected, stored and processed. Not clearly stated and violates local privacy regulations.
In addition to Hong Kong, regulatory authorities in India, Germany, Singapore and other places have also conducted relevant investigations on World Currency.
Even so, Worldcoin continues to expand, and the team recently announced that it will launch its iris verification "Orb" device in Guatemala, Malaysia, and Poland. It is worth noting that Malaysia’s official research institution even signed a memorandum of cooperation with the World Coin Foundation, Tools for Humanity and the e-government service provider MyEG in August to integrate World Coin technology into Malaysia’s national digital infrastructure.
Source: Cointelegraph, KBS World, Fintech News HK
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