Kenya Commences Probe Into Worldcoin After Suspending Operations
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Worldcoin has continued to raise concerns from regulators globally. Kenya has joined Germany, France, and the UK in launching a probe into the Worldcoin project, whose popularity has soared barely a month after. The East African country said that it had commenced criminal investigations into the operations of Worldcoin.
Kenya launches probe into Worldcoin
The Kenyan Ministry of Interior and National Administration issued a statement addressed to the National Assembly. The statement admitted that Worldcoin had received a data controller registration certificate on April 18, 2023. However, this registration certificate was not a license for the project to operate in the country.
Following the concerns surrounding the project, the country has commenced a criminal probe to determine whether the operations of Worldcoin in Kenya are authentic and legal. The ministry clarified that Worldcoin was “not registered as a legal entity in Kenya.”
A copy of the joint statement was posted on Facebook, and it said that the ministry was concerned about Worldcoin’s compliance with the Data Protection Act 2019, given that the company did not even possess the appropriate license to operate in the country.
“An application for a certificate of registration only signified that the entity has complied with sections 18 and 19 of the Data Protection Act, 2019, and does not endorse an entity’s compliance with the Act or its subsidiary regulations, nor is it a valid license for an organization to operate in Kenya or authorize the operations of an entity,” the statement read.
The joint statement by the interior and information ministries comes after the interior ministry ordered the suspension of the operations of Worldcoin in the country. Kenya was one of the largest markets by Worldcoin based on the number of signups.
The Worldcoin project was created by the CEO of OpenAI, Sam Altman. Users who want to participate in the project must scan their irises, after which they receive free cryptocurrencies. Worldcoin claims that it will create a global identity network.
The Cabinet Secretary for the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Digital Economy, Eliud Owalo, said that Worldcoin did not violate any laws. While speaking to a local TV station, the cabinet secretary said there was correspondence between the organization and the Office of the Data Commissioner.
Other regulators raise concerns about Worldcoin
The Bavarian State Office for Data Protection Supervision is probing Worldcoin in Germany. The regulator started investigating the project in November 2022 amid concerns about the project looking to process sensitive data at a massive scale.
While speaking to Reuters, the president of the regulatory agency, Michael Will, said that such new technologies are not established or properly analyzed over their use in processing the transfer of financial data. This could result in a significant risk to users.
The French privacy regulator, CNIL, also said that the legality of data collection by the project appeared questionable. It also noted concerns about how the company stored the collected data. The regulator has since launched investigations into the project.
