Worldcoin, the cryptocurrency initiative founded by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, intends to create a global ID network similar to India’s Aadhaar biometric ID system, according to a senior employee who spoke to Reuters.
Over 2.4 million people have volunteered to have their irises scanned by Worldcoin’s “orb” devices in return for a free cryptocurrency and digital ID, allaying privacy activists’ worries that the database would be abused.
Worldcoin states that its goal is to establish a global financial network and identity, offering some audacious use cases on its website, such as the ability to differentiate humans from artificial intelligence bots and the provision of a mechanism for the distribution of universal basic income (UBI).
Tiago Sada, the head of product for the company, said that the goal was to imitate India’s Aadhaar system, which generates unique ID numbers and stores fingerprint, face, and iris scan data for each person. Furthermore, he said, “A really good analogy for the type of impact something like Worldcoin can have is the Aadhaar project in India.”
Also Read: Worldcoin’s App Hits 4M Downloads Amid Privacy Debates
