The Worldcoin company began working in San Juan with the modality that has already become known and sparked controversy: it calls for volunteers to take images of the iris and in exchange pays in a cryptocurrency. This immediately raised dust, curiosity and doubts. There were dozens of interested parties who did the scanning, the Justice Department analyzed whether the activity was legal and a specialist warned of possible problems. DIARIO DE CUYO spoke with Martín Mazza, regional manager of the company, which also presents itself as a foundation. The businessman said that the system is secure, that the biometric data it protects is limited and that the objective is to provide an identification tool for people and bots. But what is not clear is its future use or what its profit scheme is.
We do not aim to sell the database obtained. Today the objective we have is only to generate access.”
The procedure consists of taking a high-resolution image of the person’s iris. From this, they obtain a unique pattern, different in all human beings, which fulfills a function similar to that of the fingerprint. This becomes a “key”, which they give to the new user, with which, after the identification system is implemented on other platforms, they will be able to use it.
This is where doubts remain, apart from those raised by other specialists. It is not known in which environments people will be able to use their identification with the “iris code series”, which is the name Worldcoin uses for this data. Mazza assured that the idea is not to sell the database. “Today the goal is to generate access,” he said. But he did not rule out that it could be used so that, at some point, the iris code system could be used to access other platforms or services. This would imply expanding the uses, involving other companies.
The businessman did not rule out this happening, although he said that those who registered are still the only ones with access to the data. “Worldcoin cannot use the user’s iris code, because it has nothing, people are the only ones who have full control of their ID, they can use it in an application only if they want,” he said. This would be thanks to another process, which would create disposable identifications, variable depending on the platform.
“Worldcoin cannot use the iris code of the user who has registered, because the company has nothing.”
Mazza said that one of the central features of the technology is that it will allow this identification of human beings. But at the moment, only Worldcoin is using the technology in some way and it is doing so to add users to its cryptocurrency. He also developed the technology to capture information, which he named the orb. But this would not be the company’s main business model either, since they propose an open source system so that it can be replicated.
“People are the only ones who have full control of their ID, they can use it in an application only if they want.”
It is from these points that some of the doubts regarding the objectives arise. Regarding this, the businessman assured that they are looking for “a new Internet paradigm” and the identification process, which they believe will be increasingly necessary. This is because artificial intelligence and bots are becoming increasingly more sophisticated and today, for example, they can read capchats, codes that were previously used to differentiate humans from software. There is also the cryptocurrency, which Worldcoin is currently giving away to those who scan, but they hope it can appreciate in value.
An advert
A San Juan specialist warned about other possible uses that the company could give to the information. Adrián Orellana, engineer and researcher at UNSJ, said that in the scan it is not clear how much information is obtained. This, he said, is risky because in the retina you can see data about different diseases. This, he explained, can translate into the sale of that data to other companies. “If that reaches a prepaid, they can reject people for this,” he said.
