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April 6, 2022 06:05 pm

Deception, Exploited Workers, and Cash Handouts: How Worldcoin Recruited Its First Half a Million Test Users

The startup promises a fairly-distributed, cryptocurrency-based universal basic income. So far all it's done is build a biometric database from the bodies of the poor. MIT Technology Review reports: On a sunny morning last December, Iyus Ruswandi, a 35-year-old furniture maker in the village of Gunungguruh, Indonesia, was woken up early by his mother. A technology company was holding some kind of "social assistance giveaway" at the local Islamic elementary school, she said, and she urged him to go. Ruswandi joined a long line of residents, mostly women, some of whom had been waiting since 6 a.m. In the pandemic-battered economy, any kind of assistance was welcome. At the front of the line, representatives of Worldcoin Indonesia were collecting emails and phone numbers, or aiming a futuristic metal orb at villagers' faces to scan their irises and other biometric data. Village officials were also on site, passing out numbered tickets to the waiting residents to help keep order. Ruswandi asked a Worldcoin representative what charity this was but learned nothing new: as his mother said, they were giving away money. Gunungguruh was not alone in receiving a visit from Worldcoin. In villages across West Java, Indonesia -- as well as college campuses, metro stops, markets, and urban centers in two dozen countries, most of them in the developing world -- Worldcoin representatives were showing up for a day or two and collecting biometric data. In return they were known to offer everything from free cash (often local currency as well as Worldcoin tokens) to Airpods to promises of future wealth. In some cases they also made payments to local government officials. What they were not providing was much information on their real intentions. This left many, including Ruswandi, perplexed: What was Worldcoin doing with all these iris scans? To answer that question, and better understand Worldcoin's registration and distribution process, MIT Technology Review interviewed over 35 individuals in six countries -- Indonesia, Kenya, Sudan, Ghana, Chile, and Norway -- who either worked for or on behalf of Worldcoin, had been scanned, or were unsuccessfully recruited to participate. We observed scans at a registration event in Indonesia, read conversations on social media and in mobile chat groups, and consulted reviews of Worldcoin's wallet in the Google Play and Apple stores. We interviewed Worldcoin CEO Alex Blania, and submitted to the company a detailed list of reporting findings and questions for comment. Our investigation revealed wide gaps between Worldcoin's public messaging, which focused on protecting privacy, and what users experienced. We found that the company's representatives used deceptive marketing practices, collected more personal data than it acknowledged, and failed to obtain meaningful informed consent. These practices may violate the European Union's General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) -- a likelihood that the company's own data consent policy acknowledged and asked users to accept -- as well as local laws.

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