Rising concern about data privacy is a key reason behind cryptocurrency’s stellar success until now. The very ethos of defi platforms is to remove the centralized agency which holds users’ data. Facebook’s Novi digital wallet was discouraged by the Senate on account of Facebook’s track record of compromising with user data. But when a cryptocurrency itself poses threat to data privacy, it presents a new scenario altogether. That is exactly the case with Worldcoin, a new startup. Worldcoin is an innovative venture that has immediately caught global attention for its unorthodox practice of giving free tokens after scanning customers’ irises. While Worldcoin officials say that the scans do not pose a threat of data leaks, privacy advocates feel otherwise.
Worldcoin operates on the idea that cryptocurrency can only be successful when it is adopted on a large scale by millions of people worldwide. That is also the philosophy behind giving free tokens to everyone. Orbs are custom biometric devices that will be capable of scanning the irises of users. These are portable devices that anyone can use and start their own network. Orbs will change the way we look at biometric systems.
Among the leading personalities worried about this development, Edward Snowden is the most prominent. As Snowden points out in his tweets, the scans will never truly be deleted since their hash will stay back. In such a situation, the danger of data leaks is always looming above our shoulders.
