Sam Altman-Founded Worldcoin Shown The Door In Hong Kong Over Privacy Concerns

In a major blow to Worldcoin WLD/USD, a Hong Kong regulator asked the cryptocurrency project to shut down all its operations within the region over risks to personal data privacy.

What Happened: The Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data (PCPD)—a statutory body tasked with the protection of personal data privacy through monitoring and compliance—served an enforcement notice to the Worldcoin Foundation, asking for the complete suspension of all its operations within the region. 

The regulator urged individuals to report any incidents of non-compliance from Worldcoin immediately. 

In the public statement, PCPD noted that Worldcoin’s operations violated local data privacy protection laws. The act of collecting people's irises was referred to as "unnecessary and excessive," along with charges of "insufficient transparency."

The regulator launched an investigation into the project's operations in January. Two rounds of inquiries were conducted before the aforementioned findings were collected.

“Worldcoin Foundation is disappointed by the views recently released by the regulatory authorities in Hong Kong,” a Worldcoin spokesperson told Benzinga.

“In an effort to prepare humanity for the age of AI, the Foundation continues to raise the privacy bar through data minimization, user control over data and advanced technology such as personal custody, iris code deletion, and secure multi-party computation. Unfortunately, the authorities in Hong Kong overlooked these aspects in their evaluation of the humanness verification process," the spokesperson added.

Why It Matters: Worldcoin was launched by OpenAI Chief Sam Altman in July last year and quickly rose in popularity due to its unique model. 

The project collects people's irises to authenticate their humanness and creates a digital ID, thereby making them eligible to receive free WLD tokens. 

However, this process has attracted government scrutiny worldwide, with countries like Kenya and Spain banning the project. 

To allay growing fears around privacy, Worldcoin tweaked its model, allowing users to request for permanent deletion of their iris codes–the unique digital ID associated with the iris. 

Price Action: At the time of writing, WLD was trading at $4.86, dropping 3.86% in the last 24 hours, according to data from Benzinga Pro. 

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