Worldcoin says will allow companies, governments to use its ID system

Record ID: 1736260

  • Title: Worldcoin says will allow companies, governments to use its ID system
  • Date: 2nd August 2023
  • Summary: MACIEIRA EXPLAINING THE APP TO THE JOURNALIST, HOLDING THE PHONE NEAR "ORB" MACIEIRA IN INTERVIEW (SOUNDBITE) (English) RICARDO MACIEIRA, WORLDCOIN REGIONAL MANAGER EUROPE SAYING: “In Worldcoin, we are on this mission of building the biggest financial and identity community that we can.” MACEIRA IN INTERVIEW (SOUNDBITE) (English) RICARDO MACIEIRA, WORLDCOIN REGIONAL MANAGER EUROPE SAYING: "So when we were looking at that, we kind of realised, okay, let's see, maybe the fingerprint might be a way. But when we kind of started looking at the scale that we want to reach, the fingerprint just doesn't have enough entropy or information to distinguish one human from one billion humans. Because there's a point, where it starts getting into false positives. So when we were looking at the different biometrics that we could use, the iris was the only one that was actually the most reliable and resilient for the scale that we wanted to reach, because the iris has enough entropy to distinguish every single human from each other." MACIEIRA SCANNING QR CODE WITH "ORB" THEN LOOKING INTO THE DEVICE (SOUNDBITE) (English) RICARDO MACIEIRA, WORLDCOIN REGIONAL MANAGER EUROPE SAYING: "So we really believe that this primitive will allow for a lot of use cases from decentralised voting, from access to platforms, to redeem coupons, for example. How to ensure - imagine a company, a big coffee company in Berlin wants to hand out a cappuccino to everyone in Berlin, but they just want to hand out one cappuccino not 20 -, so that people don't abuse the system. Right now, technologically, this is very hard to do." VARIOUS MACIEIRA HAVING FACE SCANNED (SOUNDBITE) (English) RICARDO MACIEIRA, WORLDCOIN REGIONAL MANAGER EUROPE SAYING: "And we've seen the way we've been rolling out in Europe. We also get very positive feedback. So in the end, this project is all about inclusivity. So if you want to make it inclusive, we would need to be at the place where people actually need the project. And we're going to continue doing so and we're going to continue rolling out our operations here in Europe as we're going to be doing in Latin America and Africa and all the parts of the world that will accept us and want to be part of the projects." MACIEIRA VISIBLE IN THE CAMERA DISPLAY (SOUNDBITE) (English) RICARDO MACIEIRA, WORLDCOIN REGIONAL MANAGER EUROPE SAYING: "Yeah, the universal basic income is like one of the initial value propositions that were part of our idea. I don't think we're going to be the ones generating universal basic income. But if we can build the infrastructure that allows for governments or other entities to do so, we'll be very happy." MACIEIRA VISIBLE IN THE CAMERA DISPLAY MACIEIRA IN INTERVIEW SIGN READING (German) "The German Internet-Institute, Research for the connected society" RAINER REHAK, RESEARCHER AT THE "WEIZENBAUM INSTITUT" ON AI AND SOCIETY, TALKING (SOUNDBITE) (English) RAINER REHAK, RESEARCHER AT THE "WEIZENBAUM INSTITUT" SAYING: “The business model itself is also entirely unclear. Right now, there's all the biometric data being collected in the global South with people who believe the promises that there will be money pouring out of this. But in the end, it's totally unclear what the business model would be, once you have all the biometric data. How is any wealth or any funds being generated? How is it distributed? And so there's so many question marks even before the project properly started.” REHAK TALKING (SOUNDBITE) (English) RAINER REHAK, RESEARCHER AT THE "WEIZENBAUM INSTITUT" SAYING: "So the bottom line is: it's a big project to create a new consumer base for web3 and crypto products. " SIGN READING "WEIZENBAUM INSTITUT" BERLIN VIA TEAMS, GERMANY (AUGUST 1, 2023) (REUTERS) MICHAEL WILL, PRESIDENT OF THE BAVARIAN STATE OFFICE FOR DATA PROTECTION SEEN ON SCREEN DURING AN INTERVIEW VIA TEAMS (SOUNDBITE) (English) MICHAEL WILL, PRESIDENT OF THE BAVARIAN STATE OFFICE FOR DATA PROTECTION SAYING: “And this means that we will look whether this system is stable and is safe at the end, and we will look, at the end, at a system which is deemed to transfer money. And so, again, it requires very, very ambitious security measures and lots of explanations and transparency to ensure that data protection requirements are, yes, are not neglected at the end.” WILL SEEN ON SCREEN IN VIDEO EDITING SOFTWARE (SOUNDBITE) (English) MICHAEL WILL, PRESIDENT OF THE BAVARIAN STATE OFFICE FOR DATA PROTECTION SAYING: “Again, this requires very clear conditions to guarantee fairness and transparency. Every data subject needs absolute clarity about the purposes and the means of processing. For instance, we are talking about an eye technology which seems to be in place here, and so he should not have the feeling to be overruled, in the end. And that's why we as data protection authorities are in place.” WILL ON SCREENS
  • Embargoed: 16th August 2023 11:27
  • Keywords: bitcoin finances iris scanner payment systems privacy
  • Location: BERLIN/ GERMANY
  • City: BERLIN/ GERMANY
  • Country: Germany
  • Topics: Europe,Science
  • Reuters ID: LVA003143701082023RP1
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Worldcoin will expand its operations to sign-up more users globally and aims to allow other organisations to use its iris-scanning and identity-verifying technology, a senior manager for the company behind the project told Reuters.
    Co-founded by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Worldcoin launched last week, requiring users to give their iris scans in exchange for a digital ID and, in some countries, free cryptocurrency as part of plans to create an "identity and financial network".
    In sign-up sites around the world, people have been getting their faces scanned by a shiny spherical "orb", shrugging off privacy campaigners' concerns that the biometric data could be misused. Worldcoin says 2.2 million have signed up, mostly during a trial period over the last two years. Data watchdogs in Britain, France, and Germany have said they are looking into the project.
    "We are on this mission of building the biggest financial and identity community that we can," said Ricardo Macieira, general manager for Europe at Tools For Humanity, the San Francisco and Berlin-based company behind the project.
    Worldcoin raised $115 million from venture capital investors including Blockchain Capital, a16z crypto, Bain Capital Crypto and Distributed Global in a funding round in May.
    Macieira said Worldcoin would continue rolling out operations in Europe, Latin America, Africa, and "all the parts of the world that will accept us."
    Worldcoin's website mentions various possible applications, including distinguishing humans from artificial intelligence, enabling "global democratic processes" and showing a "potential path" to universal basic income, although these outcomes are not guaranteed.
    "I don’t think we are going to be the ones generating universal basic income. If we can do the infrastructure that allows for governments or other entities to do so we would be very happy," Macieira said.
    PRIVACY CONCERNS
    Regulators and privacy campaigners have raised concerns about Worldcoin's data collection, including whether users are giving informed consent and whether one company should be responsible for handling the data.
    Rainer Rehak, a researcher on AI and society at the Weizenbaum Institute in Berlin said that it is not clear what problems Worldcoin would solve and how its business model works.
    The Bavarian State Office for Data Protection Supervision, which has jurisdiction in the European Union because Tools For Humanity has an office there, said it started investigating Worldcoin in November 2022 because of concerns about its large-scale processing of sensitive data.
    Michael Will, president of the Bavarian regulator, said it would look into whether Worldcoin's system is "safe and stable".
    Addressing privacy concerns, the Worldcoin Foundation, a Cayman Islands-based entity, said in a statement that it complies with all laws governing personal data and will continue to cooperate with governing bodies' requests for information about its privacy and data protection practices.
    Worldcoin's website says the project is "completely private" and that the biometric data is either deleted or users can opt to have it stored in encrypted form.
    (Production: Leon Malherbe, Martin Schlicht, Nette Noestlinger, Matthias Baehr, Lena Toepler, Elizabeth Howcroft)
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