Kenyan govt suspends use of worldcoin over security, privacy concerns

The Worldcoin cryptocurrency project’s local operations have been suspended in Kenya.

Kenya’s interior ministry revealed that it had suspended the local activities of the cryptocurrency project Worldcoin while government agencies assess potential risks to public safety.

Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, founded the initiative, which debuted last week. In some countries, users also receive free cryptocurrencies as part of efforts to establish a new “identity and financial network” in exchange for providing their iris scans for the purpose of obtaining a digital ID.

“The Government is concerned by the ongoing activities of an organization calling itself ‘WORLD COIN’ which is involved in the registration of citizens through the collection of eyeball/iris data,” said the statement signed by Minister Kithure Kindiki.

Worldcoin is working to develop a system for universal identification based on iris scans that may be used to demonstrate an agent’s humanness and individuality. This might be very important in a world where agents with artificial intelligence are involved in the economy, according to the initiative. However, the gathering of biometric information and the registration process in underdeveloped nations have come under fire, including charges of exploitation.

According to a statement issued to CoinDesk, many European regulatory bodies, including the Bavarian data protection body that oversees the company, have begun investigations into Worldcoin. Kenya, however, is the first nation to take things a step further and shut down the business totally while local authorities look into it.

Since the project’s introduction last week, those who had their irises scanned have obtained WLD tokens. According to statistics from CoinMarketCap, the token has increased 4.8% in the last day to reach $2.41 on cryptocurrency exchanges.

Wednesday saw the release of a “cautionary statement” from Kenya’s Capital Markets Authority.

It said in an email provided to CoinDesk that neither the project nor the tokens are subject to regulation by the organisation. According to the statement, “potential fraudulent schemes that may emerge in the over-the-counter market of crypto tokens.” Through its regulatory sandbox, the CMA is ready to collaborate with the business.

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