Worldcoin Faces Potential Ban in Colombia Amid Heightened Scrutiny

Worldcoin, the controversial proof-of-personhood project by OpenAI's Sam Altman, has found itself under the legal scanner in Colombia. The ambitious project, that aims to provide unique digital ids to human beings, has been accused of breaching the personal data protection laws in Colombia. This is because Worldcoin collects the iris scans of the eyes of those who are willing to obtain their proof-of-personhood through this project. In the past, Worlcoin has faced legal hurdles over its data collection norms in other nations as well.

Colombia's Superintendence of Industry and Commerce (SIC) has released an official statement, marking the initial step in a potential indictment process without formally charging the party involved.

“The SIC del Cambio is committed to protecting the fundamental rights of citizens and the community is asked to be careful. The purpose of the actions is to determine whether those investigated would have violated the Colombian personal data protection regime in the collection of sensitive personal data in relation to the implementation of personal data processing policies and privacy notices, express prior authorisation,” the statement issued by the SIC said.

The SIC posted this statement on its official X handle, which has a follower-base of over 235,000.

If found guilty of violating Colombia's laws, Worldcoin could face permanent closure in the country. Additionally, the government plans to impose economic sanctions and temporary restrictions on the project. As of now, Worldcoin has not commented on the development and seemingly remains committed to the growth of the project.

The official X handle of the project recently posted, “in the age of AI, proof of humanness technologies like World ID aren't a luxury, they're a necessity.”

On its official website, Worldcoin describes itself as the world's largest privacy-preserving human identity and financial network. The project claims that by offering World IDs, it eliminates the need for individuals to share personal details with web protocols to interact online.

As of Friday, August 23 the Worldcoin project has over 6.5 million unique humans from over 160 nations since being launched 396 days ago, the website reflects. In the last seven days alone, over 92,000 new accounts have been logged into Worldcoin's database. The native WLD token of the ecosystem has been claimed by over 179 million users, the website shows.

Owing to its eye scan systems, the project has faced operational hurdles in several nations including Kenya and Spain among others.

Despite Worldcoin's tussles with global regulators, other projects offering similar services are cropping up in the Web3 arena. In May this year, decentralised identity solution called Humanity Protocol raised $30 million (roughly Rs. 250 crore) in an investment round, bringing its valuation to exceed the unicorn status of $1 billion (roughly Rs. 8,350 crore).