People are having their eyes scanned all across the world in exchange for a digital ID and the prospect of earning free cryptocurrency.
The CEO of OpenAI,Sam Altman,the company that created ChatGPT, started the Worldcoin project. It claims to aim to build a new “identity and financial network” and that its digital ID will enable users to show online that they are humans and not robots, among other things.
Eyeball scans are being conducted in nations such as India, Japan, and Britain as part of the project, which was inaugurated on Monday.
On Tuesday, a crowd gathered in front of a shining silver globe with signs that read “Orbs are here” at a cryptocurrency convention in Tokyo.
Before waiting for the 25 free Worldcoin tokens that the corporation says verified users can collect, applicants lined up to have their irises scanned by the equipment.
Data collected by Worldcoin is a “potential privacy nightmare,” the Electronic Privacy Information Centre, a privacy advocacy group in the United States, said.
According to the company’s website, the initiative is “completely private,” and customers can choose to have their biometric data destroyed or encrypted before it is saved.
