coinspress.com
The Personal Information Protection Commission in South Korea has initiated an inquiry into Worldcoin following grievances regarding the project's handling of personal data, particularly its practice of scanning individuals' irises in exchange for cryptocurrency.
In a statement released on Monday, the commission stated its intent to scrutinize Worldcoin’s gathering, utilization, and potential cross-border transmission of sensitive personal data. It emphasized its readiness to take corrective measures should it uncover any breaches of local privacy regulations.
According to the commission, Worldcoin has been actively gathering facial and iris data at ten locations throughout South Korea as of the mentioned date.
This move follows a prior incident where OpenAI, led by CEO Sam Altman, faced a penalty of 3.6 million Korean won ($2,703) from the privacy watchdog for a data breach involving 687 South Korean citizens via ChatGPT.
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Worldcoin, known for its identity-centric cryptocurrency initiative, employs an Orb device for iris scanning to authenticate users, rewarding them with WLD tokens for participation. Concerns over Worldcoin’s unorthodox registration process have also been raised by other jurisdictions, including a recent instance in Hong Kong.