Violation of collecting 'iris data'! German authorities order World to 'delete all' within one month

World (formerly known as Worldcoin), a digital identity verification project co-founded by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, has recently been ordered by German authorities to delete 'biometric data collected through iris scanning' due to non-compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) of the European Union.

The Bavarian Data Protection Authority (BayLDA) stated on Thursday that World must submit a data deletion process compliant with the GDPR within one month. In addition, in the future, the processing of certain data must be subject to explicit user consent; and personal data collected in the past without legal basis must also be deleted.

Now, this investigation, which was launched in April 2023, has finally come to a conclusion. However, according to BayLDA, World has appealed, trying to seek some room for maneuver.

World, created by American tech tycoon and ChatGPT founder Sam Altman, is a blockchain-based 'identity and financial network' where users can exchange for digital identity cards (World ID) by scanning their irises. In some countries and regions, users can also receive the project's native token, Worldcoin (WLD), for free.

So far, World has raised privacy concerns in many countries around the world. Investigations have been launched in the UK, Germany, France, Hong Kong, and Argentina. Even before the mainnet went live, chaos such as 'Iris Scalpers' and 'Iris Black Market' had already emerged.

In the face of regulatory resistance, World is trying to compromise and stated in an official statement: 'The results of BayLDA's investigation mainly involve obsolete technologies and operating processes. Currently, our system no longer stores iris codes, and the collected iris data in the past has been voluntarily deleted to ensure that we no longer need to rely on storing personal data to operate World ID.'

The German authorities have ordered World to delete all the illegally collected 'iris data' within one month. This article was first published in Blockcast.