Sam Altman’s Worldcoin Draws Scrutiny for Its Invasive Biometric Methods

The crypto industry is no stranger to controversy, yet few projects have drawn more scrutiny than Sam Altman’s World, formerly known as Worldcoin.

Few projects in the crypto industry have sparked as much controversy as Sam Altman’s World, formerly known as Worldcoin. Promising to verify human uniqueness through iris scans and distribute its WLD token globally, World positions itself as a tool for financial inclusion.

However, critics like Shady El Damaty, co-founder of the Holonym Foundation, argue the project’s biometric methods are invasive, overly centralized, and at odds with the ethos of decentralization and digital privacy.

At the heart of the critique is the claim that biometric identity systems cannot be truly decentralized when they rely on proprietary hardware, closed authentication methods, and centralized control over data pipelines.

“Decentralization isn’t just a technical architecture. It’s a philosophy that prioritizes user control, privacy, and self-sovereignty. World’s biometric model is inherently at odds with this ethos,” El Damaty told Cointelegraph.

Despite using tools like multiparty computation (MPC) and zero-knowledge (ZK) proofs, World’s enterprise-grade hardware—the Orb—and centralized code deployment ultimately undermine the decentralization it claims to champion, according to El Damaty.

“This is by design to achieve their goals of uniquely identifying individual humans. This concentration of power risks creating a single point of failure and control, undermining the very promise of decentralization.”

When reached for comment, a spokesperson for World pushed back against these claims.

“World does not use centralized biometric infrastructure. It is a decentralized protocol with open-source code that anyone can contribute to,” they said, adding that the World App is non-custodial, meaning users remain in control of their digital assets and World IDs.

The project said once the Orb generates an iris code, the “iris photo will be sent as an end-to-end encrypted data bundle to your phone and will be immediately deleted from the Orb.” The iris code, they claimed, is processed with anonymizing multiparty computation so “no personal data is stored.”

Evin McMullen, co–founder of Privado ID and Billions.Network, said that World’s biometric model is not “inherently incompatible” with decentralization but faces some challenges in implementation around data centralization, trust assumptions, and governance.

“We can create a healthier and more useful internet with a decentralized approach to identity, but only if we build it with a focus on privacy, consent, and human values at the forefront,” McMullen told Cointelegraph.

Sam Altman’s OpenAI and deep fakes

El Aamty also drew a parallel between OpenAI’s large-scale scraping of “unconsented user data” and World’s collection of biometric information.

He argued that both reflect a pattern of aggressive data acquisition framed as innovation, warning that such practices risk eroding privacy and normalizing surveillance under the banner of progress.

“The irony here is hard to miss. OpenAI built its foundation by scraping vast amounts of unconsented user data to train its models, and now Worldcoin is taking that same aggressive data acquisition approach into the realm of biometric identity.”

In 2023, a class-action lawsuit filed in California accused OpenAI and Microsoft of scraping 300 billion words from the internet without consent, including personal data from millions of users, such as children.

The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on behalf of a class of individuals whose data was allegedly scraped, claimed that the companies systematically collected and processed massive amounts of data from various sources, including books, articles, code, emails, letters, and social media posts.

The complaint further alleged that OpenAI and Microsoft's actions violated federal and state privacy laws and enriched the companies at the expense of content creators and the public domain.

Later in 2024, a coalition of Canadian media outlets, including The Canadian Press and CBC, sued OpenAI for allegedly using their content without authorization to train ChatGPT, according to a report by Reuters.

The lawsuit, filed with the Federal Court in Montreal, claimed that OpenAI's actions constituted copyright infringement and unfair competition. The media organizations asserted that their articles, photographs, and other content were included in the vast dataset used to train ChatGPT, despite their not granting permission.

World, however, rejects this comparison, emphasizing that it is a separate entity from OpenAI. The company said that it neither sells nor stores personal data, and that it uses privacy-preserving technologies such as multiparty computation and zero-knowledge proofs.

“We are mindful of the trust placed in us by the people who use Worldcoin, and we are committed to upholding their privacy and autonomy throughout their journey with us,” a spokesperson for the company said.

The scrutiny also extends to World’s user onboarding. While the project says it ensures informed consent through translated guides, an in-app Learn module, brochures, and a Help Center, critics remain skeptical.

“People in developing nations, who World…