In highly-technological cultures, the idea of maintaining one’s privacy within the scope of biometrics appears to be an unremitting topic of discussion.
Or at least it is to those who monitor the technological trends of today with a careful eye.
Late last month, the cryptocurrency project Worldcoin launched, which requires users to utilize iris-scanning and identity-verifying technology, by way of its Orb iris scanners, in order to generate a digital ID. The project requires users to scan their eyeballs in order to prove their “humanness,” and to distinguish them from artificial intelligence systems.
In a departure from US intelligence agencies having, in the past, stolen faces, fingerprints, irises and voice scans of millions of Americans, Worldcoin baits users into the service by offering them “free” crypto tokens in exchange for their biometric scans.
Following the launch of the service, privacy campaigners and regulators have raised concerns about Worldcoin’s data collection techniques, such as whether users are giving informed consent and whether one company should alone be responsible for handling the data.
One such person is Rainer Rehak, AI researcher at the Weizenbaum Institute in Berlin, who said that Worldcoin’s use of the technology is “irresponsible,” and that it remains unclear what problems the technology will solve.
On Wednesday, Kenya suspended Worldcoin scans over privacy, security and financial concerns.
It has been reported that the country’s Ministry of the Interior has issued a decree suspending Worldcoin enrollment in the country, in which worries about the “authenticity and legality” of its activities in the areas of security, financial services and data protection were cited.
The suspension covers both Worldcoin and “any other entity that may be similarly engaging the people of Kenya” and will remain in place until the authorities determine “the absence of any risks to the general public whatsoever.”
Moreover, similar anxieties have been pronounced by authorities in France, Germany, India and the UK, where the domestic data watchdog has said it will be “making further inquiries” regarding the project.
Worldcoin has also been accused by some of targeting lower-income communities instead on focusing on crypto enthusiasts to gain users.
It has also been purported that Worldcoin representatives appeared to have collected more personal data than they chose to disclose, in addition to failing to obtain meaningful informed consent.
According to the technology website TechCrunch, “Along with the many issues that skeptical peers in the technology industry have been raising about the Worldcoin project and its bigger business ambitions, there are growing concerns about how those efforts to build a biometric database using the promise of free cryptocurrency have exploited economically disadvantaged people. Again, some of these issues have been there in plain sight. An MIT Review investigation — published last year — found that it ‘used deceptive marketing practices, was collecting more personal data than it acknowledged, and failed to obtain meaningful informed consent.’”
I have heard some go as far as to speculate if Worldcoin contains the necessary elements of a future totalitarian currency structure detailed by the World Economic Forum and central banks, and whether it might complement their apparent Central Bank Digital Currency agenda.
Nonetheless, this coming path from which the world’s future financial is being charted is clear to see.
The fact that Worldcoin can just as easily require fingerprint scanners with local encryption and a certificate chain to authenticate human users without compelling the yielding of their biometric data is not taken into account.
Indeed, for it is worth recalling the words of Worldcoin CEO Alex Blania, who said that, “Something like World ID will eventually exist, meaning that you will need to verify [you are human] on the internet, whether you like it or not.”
As to why Worldcoin and other crypto services cannot utilize traditional passwords, technical questions and dual authentication to verify the identity of its users, and why these methods might be insufficient for identification purposes, Blania did not say.
But Blania has said that digital IDs will be so prevalent that its application will become inevitable, and there will be no way to escape verifying the quality of being human (and, perhaps, a few more things) online, should one wish to exist over the internet at all.
The thing to remember here is that, while the intentions of Worldcoin might appear beneficial, it is rational to wonder what it can or will do with a database of irises.
Resultantly, some interesting interpretations of what is now coming to pass have surfaced.
This coming digital financial design, in the view of independent journalist Leo Hohmann, is based on the world’s citizens accepting the two technological components of “A globally recognized digital ID to replace the cards in your wallet and a globally recognized digital money to replace the cash in your wallet. The two together will comprise the foundation of the punitive global beast system.”
He goes on to say, “And while that idea may sound like a dystopian nightmare to some, people in several southern European countries, notably Spain and Portugal, can’t wait to give away their iris biometrics as proof of identity and the right to use a cryptocurrency transfer system.”
“Once you sign up for Worldcoin, your new ‘World ID’ will be issued to you,” remarked an article from The Economic Collapse blog. “Ultimately, the goal is for the entire Internet to start using this new ‘World ID’ system.”
The article adds, “Needless to say, just offering a ‘World ID’ is not going to motivate a lot of people to embrace this new system. So the founders are also offering free money to everyone that signs up where laws allow for such a thing…But if you want your free money, you have got to visit ‘The Orb.’”
The website further notes that, “But it is imperative for all of us to understand that this is a very serious threat, because one of the guys heading up this project is also the CEO of the company that brought us ChatGPT…And now [Sam Altman] is absolutely determined to get as many people into this new system as he possibly can.”
The blog also says, “Whether this new scheme ultimately succeeds or fails, it appears to be inevitable that the powers that be will try to force digital identification upon all of us one way or another. And whoever controls the global system of digital identification that ultimately prevails will have immense power over the entire planet.”
Of course, it must be left to readers to decide on whether the so-called Brave New World that is being framed in culture is in the best interest of all.
But what does seem sanguine at the present time is that the day may not be far off in which the average privacy advocate will take to reminiscing about the not-too-distant past in which many Americans believed the simple CAPTCHA to be all-too damaging to their personal privacy in the digital realm.