Worldcoin bringing iris biometrics operation to Malaysia

“Orbs coming to Malaysia,” says a new announcement from Worldcoin. “Verify your humanness.” The iris biometrics, digital ID and cryptocurrency firm has ruffled the feathers of digital regulators worldwide, but its forthcoming deployment in Malaysia comes with the approval of the government, in the form of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed by applied research and development agency Mimos Berhad, the Worldcoin Foundation, Tools for Humanity (TFH) and e-government services provider MyEG.

Worldcoin’s blog says the intent of the MOU is to “leverage the Worldcoin protocol and TFH technologies to improve ongoing and future work related to digital credentials.” MIMOS will serve as the technical backbone, while MyEG will bring infrastructure and support for integration. The two previously signed an MOU in 2022 to jointly build the Malaysia Blockchain Infrastructure (MBI).

The new agreement appears to cover a broad swath of potential collaborations on digital infrastructure, manufacturing and national blockchain projects. It promises to ripple throughout Malaysia’s economy, contributing to the development of a new skilled digital workforce and improving security, efficiency and scalability of digital ecosystems.

Of course, it also means Malaysians can have their irises scanned by a Worldcoin Orb, which the company says provides “proof of humanness.”

Ecuadorian deployment generates concern

Ecuador, for one, wants a little more clarity on what that means, exactly. Just two months after Worldcoin set up iris scanning operations in two cities there, the South American nation’s Superintendency of Companies has issued an alert raising concerns about “risks associated with the delivery of biometric data” to the company and parent TFH.

The alert makes special note of Worldcoin’s favorite offer: biometrics for bucks – specifically, WLD cryptocurrency tokens. “This practice, which was recently registered in Guayaquil, has generated concern among the authorities,” reads a machine translation. “This is due to a lack of clarity regarding the use of this sensitive information.”

Worldcoin tests ‘no such thing as bad publicity’ axiom

Worldcoin has definitely broken into the mainstream news cycle, with recent pieces from The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) and Bloomberg Technology.

“Sam Altman is battling with governments over your eyes,” says the headline in WSJ. The company, writes author Angus Berwick, “has been raided in Hong Kong, blocked in Spain, fined in Argentina and criminally investigated in Kenya. A ruling looms on whether it can keep operating in the European Union.”

After cataloging the various run-ins with the law Worldcoin has had over the course of its relatively short existence, the piece cites recent trading prices to estimate that “the total pool of WLD is theoretically worth some $15 billion.” It says the Cayman Islands-based Worldcoin Foundation still controls 97 percent of WLD, “meaning the price is set by a small pool of currency in circulation.”

It also quotes Worldcoin Chief Privacy officer Damien Kieran, who argues Wolrdcoin’s iris scanning technology is “by default is privacy-enhancing. We don’t collect data to harvest it. We don’t sell data. In fact, we couldn’t sell it, because we don’t know who the data belongs to.” Worldcoin says 6,482,058 humans have had their irises scanned by Orbs to date.

One noteworthy point in Berwick’s article is that Worldcoin is effectively proposing to alleviate a problem – synthetic humans, false identities, deepfakes – that he helped create with ChatGPT and other OpenAI projects.

For Bloomberg, Worldcoin tags in TFH CEO Alex Blania, who co-founded Worldcoin with Altman. Noting that the project “can sound nuts” and that Blania himself has estimated a five percent chance that it will see widespread success, a panel grills the CEO on – once again – how clear the company has been with those whose iris biometrics it has collected.

Blania responds by arguing that “you don’t understand most of the technologies you’re using. That’s not the point. You understand why you’re doing it and what comes out of it for you.” He calls Worldcoin “truly critical” for “our democracy and things we care about.”

Article Topics

biometrics  |  cryptocurrency  |  digital ID  |  Ecuador  |  iris biometrics  |  Malaysia  |  Mimos  |  Tools for Humanity  |  World  |  World ID  |  World ID Orb