Worldcoin, a digital ID project based on biometrics, namely, eyeball scanning, co-founded by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, is eying (no pun) partnerships not only with OpenAI, but also PayPal, reports say.
However, these movements are not accompanied by any clarity for now, an example of this being another Worldcoin co-founder and its CEO Alex Blania refusing to make a direct announcement regarding the deal with OpenAI.
Blania at the same time confirmed that the company (specifically, Tools for Humanity, the main Worldcoin developer) is talking to PayPal – but the payments transactions giant is currently not commenting on any of this.
The general trend, albeit on a much smaller scale (despite the grandiose ambitions) seems to be the tried-and-tested Big Tech path of acquisitions or collaborations in a particular space in order to consolidate the grip on a market.
Reports note that Tools for Humanity previously started working with Okta, an identity and access management company, while just this April, it bought Ottr Finance, a startup developing digital wallets.
This is happening as Worldcoin is facing pushback from regulators in multiple countries around the world, who are mostly concerned about the enrollment standards (such as age verification) and data storage policies the controversial company has in place.
Worldcoin’s stated effort is to have “every person in the world” in its ID service, where the transactional nature of the thing is users giving up the sensitive biometric data contained in the irises of their eyes in exchange for what some might call “cryptocurrency change.”
The ultimate goal is to create the biggest “human identity and financial network” in the world, and the promise is, no surprise there – that this can and will be done while at the same time “preserving privacy.”
But it is precisely privacy fears that are underpinning the scrutiny over Worldcoin’s operations, and so its plans have been hitting some snags in places as far apart as Hong Kong and Spain, Malaysia, and Portugal.
However, Blania has shared that Worldcoin is taking a “proactive” approach in dealing with regulators, that is – it is hoping that compromising on some features will render the operation as a whole sustainable.
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