Sam Altman’s ambitious venture, Worldcoin, has hit a critical regulatory wall in Europe. The Spanish data protection watchdog, AEPD, declared on Thursday that Worldcoin must erase all iris-scanning data gathered since its inception. This follows a bombshell ruling earlier that day by Bavaria’s BayLDA, which found the company in violation of the EU’s stringent General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The ruling amplifies growing privacy concerns surrounding the venture, which seeks to build a global identity system by incentivizing individuals to exchange their biometric data for cryptocurrency and a digital ID. Spain’s High Court had already dismissed Worldcoin’s appeal against a temporary ban in March, signaling mounting resistance to the project’s bold, data-heavy model.
Worldcoin, now rebranded simply as World, headquartered in Bavaria’s Erlangen, is navigating rough waters as privacy regulators tighten their grip. Co-founded by the high-profile OpenAI CEO Sam Altman in 2019, the venture has faced relentless scrutiny for its reliance on sensitive biometric data. Critics argue that the project’s promise of “free” digital currency comes at too steep a cost to personal privacy, a debate that has reached fever pitch in Europe. With the AEPD and BayLDA’s latest decisions, Altman’s dream of a globally unified identity system may face insurmountable hurdles, forcing a fundamental rethink of the startup’s approach—or its very survival.
(Source: CoinTelegraph | DL News | Investing.com)
