Catenaa, Thursday, December 26, 2024 – A key German privacy regulator has ordered the controversial World project, backed by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, to delete biometric data collected from scanning people’s eyeballs.
The Bavarian State Office for Data Protection Supervision, tasked with enforcing the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), announced the decision Thursday, citing improper legal grounds for the data collection.
The regulator requires World, formerly known as Worldcoin, to establish a GDPR-compliant deletion process within a month. Additionally, the company must seek explicit consent for specific data processing steps moving forward. The order concludes an investigation initiated in April 2023.
World has appealed the decision but emphasized that its practices have evolved. In a blog post, the company stated that iris codes used for identity verification are no longer stored, and older biometric data was voluntarily deleted to meet GDPR requirements.
World, which aims to distinguish humans from AI-powered entities using silver orbs for eyeball scans, has faced global regulatory hurdles. Countries like Spain and Portugal have restricted its operations, while it recently expanded to Brazil.
