Germany Opens Investigation into Worldcoin

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BayLDA, the Bavarian State Data Protection Supervisory Authority, has been investigating the activities of Sam Altman’s Worldcoin project regarding the collection of biometric information since the end of 2022.

BayLDA Chairman Michael Will has expressed concern over the risks involved due to the unclear user agreement.

The company has also drawn the attention of several European regulators, with the Office of the UK Information Commissioner and National Commission for Informatics and Liberties of France both questioning the legality of the data collection.

Worldcoin was officially launched on July 24th, and the main product of the project, the World ID protocol, is based on zero-knowledge proofs.

The protocol is a mobile tool which can verify people using a retinal scan or phone number.

Altman recently showcased a long queue in Japan of those wishing to undergo biometric verification in exchange for WLD tokens.