Worldcoin is expanding to Great Britain with eye scan ID and crypto premiums
Sam Altman von Openaai brings his controversial project for the identity examination, Worldcoin, to Great Britain and initially starts in London.
The project on it aimed atTo distinguish real people from AI bots uses a spherical device to scan the iris of the users and assign them a clear digital ID that is referred to as “World ID”.
This biometric signature serves as proof of identity in a digital world, which is increasingly permeated by AI. In return, users receive WLD tokens, the native cryptocurrency of WorldCoin, as an incentive for participation and interaction with decentralized applications that accept this ID.
The introduction in the UK will not stay in London – other cities like Manchester, Cardiff and Glasgow are the next to it. The team behind the project, Tools for Humanity, says that interest increases in both companies and regulatory authorities, as fraud and identity manipulation are becoming increasingly sophisticated.
To remedy concerns about data protection, the company assures that no raw data of the iris is stored. The information is encrypted and deleted after the scan, and the verification takes place locally on the user's device, which reduces the dependency on centralized databases.
The regulatory authorities have taken note of this. Worldcoin actively works with the British data protection authorities to ensure compliance with the regulations, even if critics question the ethics of the use of biometric data in exchange for cryptocurrency.
Worldcoin has already verified 13 million users worldwide and continues to expand into large US cities such as San Francisco and Austin. Whether this usher in a new era of digital identity – or raises deeper surveillance concerns – the United Kingdom is now part of the experiment.
