Portuguese authorities ordered Worldcoin to stop collecting biometric data

Worldcoin in Portugal received an order from local authorities to stop collecting personal data for 90 days. Reuters writes about this.

The decision follows a similar ban in neighboring Spain. The authorities of South Korea and Hong Kong also initiated an investigation into the company.

“The Portuguese regulator said there was a high risk of citizens' data protection rights being breached, justifying urgent intervention to prevent serious harm. More than 300,000 citizens have provided Worldcoin with their biometrics,” the document says.

Over the past month, the agency has received dozens of complaints about the unauthorized collection of data from minors, insufficient disclosure of information about the service, and the inability to revoke consent to provide information.

Company representatives assured that Worldcoin is “fully compliant with all laws and regulations.”

The main product of the project, the World ID protocol, is based on zero-knowledge proofs. It is a tool that allows people to authenticate themselves using biometrics or a phone number.

In February, the team announced that it had reached 1 million daily active users on the World App. 

The launch of Worldcoin raised questions about data protection among regulators in many countries. In particular, the UK, France, Germany, Argentina and Kenya became interested in the project’s activities. On March 21, the authorities of the latter rejected the request of the US government to reverse the decision to suspend the project in the jurisdiction.

Worldcoin previously open-sourced the core components of the orb software and introduced the Personal Custody privacy feature.

Recall that in January the Worldcoin developers announced an upgrade of orbs. Biometric devices will become more like an “Apple product.”

Prior to this, the company introduced World ID 2.0, integrated with several platforms, including Telegram, Reddit, Shopify and Minecraft, for passwordless authorization.