Worldcoin’s activities in India, as well as other former British colonies such as Zimbabwe, where banks are banned from processing crypto transactions, and Kenya, where a new law forbids the transfer of biometrics data beyond the country’s borders, evoke Silicon Valley’s history of ignoring sensitive cultural issues and skirting regulations. Biometrics play an important role in colonial history: British administrators began experimenting with them in the 1850s as a way to control and intimidate their subjects in colonial India. Worldcoin’s globe-trotting crypto giveaway has taken it through rich European countries like Germany and Norway, but a focus of the startup’s data collection has been in low-income countries in Asia and Africa. Khosla Ventures did not respond to a request for comment. Until then, every person who scanned their irises is left with a voucher for a cryptocurrency that’s worth nothing.Īndreessen Horowitz declined to comment on this story. The launch of the Worldcoin token has also taken longer than expected, now with a vague target of “later this year,” Orb operators have been told. But the company still has not committed to a timeline, even though it has captured and stored almost a half million iris scans to train its algorithms. Worldcoin says that once its systems are perfected, it will anonymize and delete users’ biometric data, thereby guaranteeing their privacy. “Ensuring a person is human, unique, and alive is an unsolved problem,” reads an internal Worldcoin deck marked as confidential, which was viewed by BuzzFeed News. Rather than just facilitating the company’s utopian promises, the Orb appears to be at the core of Worldcoin’s ambitions to dominate the emerging business of anonymous digital authentication: in other words, proving that an online avatar is a real person without revealing who they are. The documents indicate that the true value of Worldcoin’s continent-spanning field test lies in its distinctive Orbs. “Quite surely, in some places, communication, marketing, all of those things, could have been clearer and better,” Blania said in an interview with BuzzFeed News. Worldcoin CEO Alex Blania acknowledged that people are upset, but said the company is learning through its field testing. BuzzFeed News is not specifying the locations of Orb operators or Worldcoin users to protect their identities. Orb operators in Africa, Asia, and Europe spoke to BuzzFeed News under the condition of anonymity because they feared retribution from Worldcoin as well as local authorities. Glitches in the Orb’s technology, they say, have hampered the sign-up process and opened the door for fraud. Orb operators themselves have faced arrest, harassment, late payments, and a changing wage structure that they say makes the work financially unfeasible. Top Silicon Valley venture firms Andreessen Horowitz (which also invests in BuzzFeed) and Khosla Ventures have poured millions into the outfit. The founders, including the high-profile tech investor Sam Altman, have said their goal is ultimately to lift billions out of poverty through a universal basic income. To spread its crypto gospel across the planet, Worldcoin recruited a corps of “Orb operators” whose job it was to scan people’s irises - in order, they said, to keep people from claiming their payment multiple times. Worldcoin promised to jump-start the global crypto revolution with an audacious plan: to give out digital money to all 7.9 billion people on Earth. “You are thieves,” he texted back in anger. When BuzzFeed News texted Kudzanayi months later to ask him about his experience, he initially thought the message had come from a Worldcoin representative. “Open your eyes.” The machine stared back at him for about 30 seconds before the men fiddled with their phones and told him they were done. “Face detected,” said the Orb in its robo-staccato voice when one of the men pointed it at Kudzanayi. Kudzanayi, a 32-year-old truck driver, needed the money. All anyone had to do to claim this prize was to get their eyes scanned by the futuristic device, which they called “the Orb.” The men were offering all comers a T-shirt and a voucher for $20 worth of Worldcoin, which one of the men boasted would appreciate 500%. The men worked for a cryptocurrency company called Worldcoin, which had come to countries across Africa with a proposition for locals. At its center, three men held up an otherworldly silver sphere that spoke in a brisk, business-like voice. As Kudzanayi strolled through the mall with friends, a small crowd caught his attention.
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