- Thai data protection authorities ordered World to shutter operations
- They concluded that trading biometric data for crypto breached the law.
- Binance issued a warning to users in the country trading WLD.
Thai data authorities ordered that World, Sam Altman’s iris-scanning operation, delete over 1.2 million records it has collected in the country.
The Personal Data Protection Committee also ordered the company to suspend all operations in Thailand on Monday, according to Chaichanok Chidchob, minister of digital economy and society.
In Thailand, an expert panel that investigated whether World had breached the country’s data protection act concluded that collecting biometric data in exchange for cryptocurrency was a violation of the law.
The company has halted its iris-scanning operations in the country, according to Bangkok Post.
The Ministry of Digital Economy and Society did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Global controversy
World, previously known as Worldcoin, is a digital identity project co-founded by OpenAI’s Altman. It uses biometric data to issue digital IDs to participating users.
In exchange for scanning their eyes, users can earn WLD tokens, a cryptocurrency.
The project, aimed at reducing online fraud amid an uptick in artificial intelligence activity, has sparked controversy worldwide.
In December, Germany’s data protection agency announced that World had breached Europe’s strict data protection laws, joining a long list of European and Latin American countries that have scrutinised the iris-scanning crypto venture.
Tools for Humanity, the company developing World, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
$31 million in losses
The PDPC’s announcement on Monday comes just weeks after authorities raided a World operation in Thailand.
Authorities arrested several suspects, alleging they operated an unlicensed crypto exchange in the country.
The raid focused on individuals who are not affiliated with World or its parent company, Tools for Humanity, a person close to the matter told DL News at the time.
An executive for M Vision, an events agency that installs World iris-scanning locations in Thailand, is challenging the order to delete the 1.2 million human records.
Opas Cherdpunt argues that deleting 1.2 million iris scans would result in financial losses of $31 million for users, according to Bangkok Post.
Cherdpunt did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
‘Exercise caution’
Local crypto exchanges, including Binance, Bitkub, and Orbix, have all issued warnings to their users to exercise caution when trading the WLD token.
“Given the significance of this information which may potentially affect users’ rights and interests, Gulf Binance Co., Ltd., as a licensed digital asset business operator providing trading services for this token, advises all users to exercise caution and careful judgment when trading or holding WLD tokens,” the Binance statement read.
The WLD token is trading at roughly 60 cents on Wednesday, nearly 95% down from its all-time high set in March 2024.
Liam Kelly is DL News’ Berlin-based DeFi correspondent. Have a tip? Get in touch at liam@dlnews.com.
