How is Sam Altman's Worldcoin addressing privacy concerns about iris scan data?
The Worldcoin project, run by OpenAI founder Sam Altman, has been subject to suspension orders and investigations around the world due to privacy concerns. The Wall Street Journal has reported on how the Worldcoin project is trying to ease the concerns of governments and activists.
Sam Altman's Worldcoin Is Battling With Governments Over Your Eyes - WSJ
Worldcoin's Iris-Scanning Tech Faces Global Pushback
https://www.pymnts.com/news/biometrics/2024/worldcoins-iris-scanning-tech-faces-global-pushback/
The Worldcoin project's 'World ID' is a system that proves that you are a real person by scanning your iris. Users who register with World ID are given Worldcoin (WLD), a virtual currency, and at the time of writing, more than 6.4 million people have registered with World ID.
Because the system involves scanning irises to create a database, there have been many problems with the way personal information is handled. In Kenya and Spain , the service was temporarily suspended by order of authorities, and the system has been investigated by more than 10 government organizations, including in Hong Kong and Argentina.
Worldcoin claims that 'data is encrypted and exchanged between the user's smartphone and the iris scanning device 'Orb', and it is impossible to decrypt personal data on the server side backend.' In fact, Orb's software has been open-sourced, allowing anyone to verify the transparency of Orb's image processing and privacy management.
OpenAI's Sam Altman's virtual currency 'Worldcoin' open-sources the software for its biometric authentication device Orb - GIGAZINE
Michael Will, head of the Bavarian state data regulator, said he was concerned about the 'irreversibility' of data leaks, noting that biometric data cannot be tampered with. 'Once someone has access to your specific iris photo, you can never remain anonymous,' he told The Wall Street Journal.
Worldcoin is focusing on protecting privacy by allowing users to permanently delete the iris code stored in the database. The new system splits the iris code and stores it in separate encrypted databases, so that only those with access to all servers and the combination key can retrieve the iris code.
Damien Kieran, Worldcoin's Chief Privacy Officer, emphasized the company's security in terms of privacy, saying, 'We don't collect data for profit. We don't sell data. In fact, we can't sell data because we don't know who it belongs to.'
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in Software, Web Service, Hardware, Posted by log1d_ts