{"id":51712,"date":"2021-10-25T13:20:25","date_gmt":"2021-10-25T10:20:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/?p=51712"},"modified":"2025-09-03T01:15:37","modified_gmt":"2025-09-02T22:15:37","slug":"snowden-criticises-worldcoin-concept","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/snowden-criticises-worldcoin-concept\/","title":{"rendered":"Snowden criticises Worldcoin concept"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Edward Snowden, the former employee of the United States&#8217; National Security Agency (NSA) and CIA, a well-known privacy advocate, criticised the creation of a biometric data database by the Worldcoin startup.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">This looks like it produces a global (hash) database of people&#8217;s iris scans (for &#8220;fairness&#8221;), and waves away the implications by saying &#8220;we deleted the scans!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Yeah, but you save the *hashes* produced by the scans. Hashes that match *future* scans. <\/p>\n<p>Don&#8217;t catalogue eyeballs. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/uAk0NYGeZu\">https:\/\/t.co\/uAk0NYGeZu<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Edward Snowden (@Snowden) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Snowden\/status\/1451990496537088000?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">October 23, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>The project by Y Combinator founder Sam Altman <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/crypto-startup-worldcoin-to-pay-users-for-iris-scans\">positions itself as<\/a> its solution as a way to combat bots and fake accounts online. The device, called Orb, scans the retina and converts the image into a numerical identity code. The scan is allegedly immediately deleted and is not stored anywhere.<\/p>\n<p>The startup also gives away cryptocurrency for scanning for free.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>\u201cIt looks like he is creating a global database of iris-scan hashes (for &#8216;fairness&#8217;), and waves off the consequences by saying &#8216;We deleted the scans!&#8217;\u201d \u2014 wrote Snowden.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>He sees the problem in storing the obtained hashes, which can be matched to future scans.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>\u201cDo not catalogue eyeballs,\u201d urged Snowden.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>In his view, biometrics should not be used to fight fraud.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>\u201cIn fact, do not use biometrics for anything&#8230; The human body is not a compost bin for tickets,\u201d concluded Snowden.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Galaxy Digital&#8217;s head of corporate research Alex Thorn also joined in criticizing Worldcoin. In his words, the project is \u201cso dystopian that it&#8217;s hard to believe it&#8217;s real.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">worldcoin is so incredibly dystopian that it\u2019s hard to believe it\u2019s real. <\/p>\n<p>that major investors are promoting this global biometric data gathering scheme with its large premine is so audaciously tyrannical and self-serving that it should be a \u201cmask off\u201d moment for all observers<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Alex Thorn (@intangiblecoins) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intangiblecoins\/status\/1452259405219631107?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">October 24, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>\u201cThe fact that major investors are promoting this global biometric data-gathering scheme with its large premine is so tyrannically brazen and self-serving that it should be a \u2018mask-off\u2019 moment for all observers,\u201d Thorn said.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Back in October 2021, Worldcoin <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/sam-altmans-worldcoin-valued-at-1-billion\">attracted $25 million<\/a> in a round led by the Andreessen Horowitz fund. The round valued the startup at $1 billion.<\/p>\n<p>Follow ForkLog news on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/forklog\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Facebook<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Edward Snowden, the former employee of the United States&#8217; National Security Agency (NSA) and CIA, a well-known privacy advocate, criticised the creation of a biometric data database by the Worldcoin startup.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":51713,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"select":"1","news_style_id":"1","cryptorium_level":"","_short_excerpt_text":"","creation_source":"","_metatest_mainpost_news_update":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1486,1587,1138],"class_list":["post-51712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-biometrics","tag-edward-snowden","tag-opinions"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"views":"29","promo_type":"1","layout_type":"1","short_excerpt":"","is_update":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51712"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51712\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51714,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51712\/revisions\/51714"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}