Portugal Orders Worldcoin to Halt Biometric Data Collection

Worldcoin suffered another setback in Europe with its "proof of personhood" scheme to increase the number of people signing up by scanning their eyes to verify that they are human. On March 26, the Portuguese National Data Protection Commission (Comissão Nacional de Proteção de Dados, or CNPD) declared that Worldcoin must cease gathering personal data for ninety days. Worldcoin is an initiative to establish a global digital identity system by fusing Bitcoin with iris scanning technology. It was launched in 2019 by Tools for Humanity (TFH), a business created by Alex Blania, Max Novendstern, and Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI. Worldcoin offers a digital ID and free cryptocurrency to those who allow its "orb" devices to scan their faces. On Worldcoin's website, over 4.5 million users from 120 countries have registered. According to Portugal's data authority, the CNPD, there was a high r...