Brazil Suspends Sam Altman’s Iris-Scanning World Project, ANPD Issues Notice to Parent Firm 

Brazil has joined Spain and Germany in obstructing the operations of Sam Altman's controversial World project. The National Data Protection Authority (ANPD) has suspended the services of the World project within the country. A notice about the development was issued over the weekend to Altman's tech firm Tools for Humanity (TFH), that parents World. Brazil had initiated a probe on Altman's crypt company in November 2024 to analyse how it processed iris-scans of people signing up.

The World project, back in 2023, when it was called Worldcoin, had said it was initiating a programme called Worldcoin Grants to give recurring stipends available to verified World ID holders in eligible countries. To claim these rewards, users would have to download the World app.

Brazilian authorities took notice of these financial offerings along with the project's iris-scanning process for biometric verification to launch an investigation into its operations.

Explaining its decision to suspend the project, the ANPD said, “In a preventive analysis, the General Coordination of Inspection understood that the granting of monetary compensation by the company, through the offering of cryptocurrencies, may harm the obtaining of consent from the holder of personal data.”

The World project was supposedly founded to serve as a way to eliminate the need for individuals to share personal details with Web protocols to interact online by offering World IDs. The project claims that these ‘World IDs' are a proof of personhood that distinguishes genuine human beings from bots on the Web.

During its investigation, Brazil's General Coordination of Inspection observed that monetary benefits of signing up for the project could be playing an influential role for getting people to get their eyes scanned as a biometric requirement for the project. In addition, it also found that this biometric data collected by the World project is potentially impossible to be erased and that people who sign up do not necessarily have the option to revoke their consent. These factors also added to Brazil's decision to suspend the project's services in the country.

“Monetary consideration offered by the company may interfere with the free expression of will of individual, by influencing the decision regarding the provision of their biometric data, especially in cases where potential vulnerability and insufficiency make the weight of the payment offered even greater,” the ANPD explained.

Neither Altman nor TFH have responded to the development yet.

In December, regulators in Spain and Germany directed the project to delete iris scans of users collected in both countries. Whether or not Altman's firm adhered to the direction remains unclear. Prior to this, Hong Kong, too, blocked the project in May, citing privacy concerns.

The project, initially named Worldcoin, was rebranded to World in October 2024.