LONDON : Worldcoin will expand its operations to sign up more users globally and aims to allow other organisations to use its iris-scanning and identity-verifying technology, a senior manager for the company behind the project told Reuters.
"We are on this mission of building the biggest financial and identity community that we can," said Ricardo Macieira, general manager for Europe at Tools For Humanity, the San Francisco and Berlin-based company behind the project. Worldcoin's website mentions various possible applications, including distinguishing humans from artificial intelligence, enabling"global democratic processes" and showing a"potential path" to universal basic income, although these outcomes are not guaranteed.
Companies could pay Worldcoin to use its digital identity system, for example if a coffee shop wants to give everyone one free coffee, then Worldcoin's technology could be used to ensure that people do not claim more than one coffee without the shop needing to gather personal data, Macieira said. The Bavarian State Office for Data Protection Supervision, which has jurisdiction in the European Union because Tools For Humanity has an office there, said it started investigating Worldcoin in November 2022 because of concerns about its large-scale processing of sensitive data.