Argentina’s data privacy government agency is following in France and the United Kingdom’s footsteps by investigating the eye-scanning crypto project Worldcoin (WLD).
The Agency of Access to Public Information (AAIP) says in a new press release it’s looking into how the Worldcoin Foundation collects, stores and uses personal data in Argentina.
The agency’s new investigation comes on the heels of France’s privacy watchdog, the CNIL, announcing late last month that it planned to probe the hot-button project over the legality of its biometric data collection.
The UK’s data regulator, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), also said in a statement in late July that it would be “making inquiries” into the launch of Worldcoin in the UK.
The project, which was co-founded by OpenAI’s Sam Altman, utilizes iris scanners to verify users’ identities.
According to the project’s website, Worldcoin consists of “privacy-preserving” World ID and a digital WLD token that is received by users “simply for being human.” The project plans on deploying 1,500 of its iris-scanning orbs to 35 cities worldwide this summer and fall to meet the “global demand for ID.”
The WLD token was first launched last month. The 156th-ranked crypto asset by market cap is trading at $1.69 at time of writing and is down 7% in the past 24 hours.
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