Worldcoin, a crypto biometrics project cofounded by Sam Altman, is shifting its focus away from Europe — where its tech and products are built — to Asia, according to the managing director of its Europe entity Fabian Bodensteiner.
Bodensteiner told an audience at Sifted Summit this week that the company is seeking to prioritise markets where local companies and governments are open to emerging technologies.
“I would not say that [Europe] is a large focus,” he said. “We just see a larger dynamic in other regions of the world and because we’re not 1000 employees we need to prioritise where we see the biggest business opportunities.”
Worldcoin’s mission is to go around the world scanning people’s eyeballs and faces with shiny chrome sphere devices known as ‘Orbs’, to give people a ‘World ID’, a certificate verifying an individual as a unique human being. Participants have the option of claiming the project’s cryptocurrency, WLD, in exchange for taking part.
The project’s technology and products are built by a company called Tools For Humanity which is headquartered in both San Francisco and the Bavarian town of Erlangen. But Bavaria’s data protection authority (BayLDA) is expected to make a regulatory decision later this month, which could impact its operation in Europe.
Bodensteiner cited countries in the APAC region such as Japan and Malaysia, along with Latin American jurisdictions like Argentina, as more promising markets for its technology.
Worldcoin’s European roots under threat
Tools for Humanity manufactures Worldcoin’s Orbs. The company’s goal is to create a digital identification system that proves you’re human and not a bot as advances in AI and deepfake technology progress. World ID, for instance, can be used to log into websites such as Discord and Shopify.
“Over the last four to five years, we now see those technologies where AI agents behave in a way that’s super hard for a human to actually tell if that’s a human being or a bot,” he explained.
But its ambition hasn’t gone without notice. Authorities in Spain and Portugal suspended the project for 90 days earlier this year over concerns about the processing of sensitive data after receiving hundreds of complaints that it had scanned children’s eyeballs.
Last July, after the Orbs made their debut in London the UK Information Commission announced it was making inquiries into the project. The BayLDA is currently nearing the final weeks of a two-year long audit assessing the project’s compliance with GDPR (the company insists its technology anonymises data in such a way that it shouldn’t fall under GDPR rules).
Eying up the year ahead
This year, however, Worldcoin was made available in Poland and Austria along with its longstanding operations in Germany and Bodensteiner says that, while it’s not Worldcoin’s top priority, it’s not giving up on Europe entirely.
“We want to make it work here, we don’t just want to leave Europe and dodge things,” he said at Sifted Summit in London last week. “We want to stay in the conversation and we want to stay committed to the market.”
Bodensteiner maintained that his focus was largely on the APAC region — it’s currently working with a number of “very prominent game publishers” in the region to integrate Worldcoin’s tech into their products.
He declined to give updates on when Worldcoin’s Orbs will be operational in the UK or elsewhere in Europe. Tools for Humanity is also expected to announce a new updated version of its Orb device along with updates on its new partnerships and technology on October 17 in a live stream presentation from Sam Altman and CEO Alex Blania.
Read the orginal article: https://sifted.eu/articles/worldcoin-europe-gdpr/
