Thai authorities have officially requested the suspension of the digital identity project World, supported by Sam Altman, and the deletion of all user identity data.
According to a statement released by the Ministry of Digital Economy and Society (MDES) on Monday, the National Economic and Social Development Council of Thailand, the country's strategic planning agency, has ordered World to delete the iris scan data of 1.2 million local users.
The order specifies that World’s practice of exchanging iris scans for its Worldcoin (WLD) tokens violates Thailand's Personal Data Protection Act, which governs the collection, use, and disclosure of personal data.
The suspension comes weeks after Thai authorities conducted a surprise inspection of a World iris scanning location in October, amid allegations of potential legal violations related to digital assets.
According to a statement shared on X on Sunday, World Thailand, represented by TIDC Worldverse, has suspended local verification (as reported locally). World has also removed Thailand from the list of available countries with Orb device locations.
The company stated, "Despite our compliance with local laws and regulations and our transparent communication with regulators, we have still received this order."
World Thailand emphasized that this suspension negatively impacts millions of Thai users who adopted its digital identity technology to help protect themselves against fraud, identity theft, and AI-driven scams.
The company added, "We remain committed to building a safer digital reality for the people of Thailand today and in the future, and we continue to engage in constructive dialogue with relevant Thai authorities, including MDES and the Personal Data Protection Committee (PDPC), on the way forward."
Cointelegraph reached out to Tools of Humanity, the developer of World, for comments regarding the inspection, but had not received a response by the time of publication.
Since the launch of World, previously known as Worldcoin, in July 2023, the project has faced multiple regulatory challenges globally.
In May, Indonesia's digital ministry announced it was investigating local operators of World for suspected activities and registration violations. World subsequently suspended its verification services while clarifying licensing requirements.
Other countries, including Germany, Kenya, and Brazil, have also expressed concerns about the potential risks of World users' biometric data, although the company continues to assert that user data is protected and will not be leaked.
World told Cointelegraph in May, "World does not use centralized biometric infrastructure," emphasizing that iris scans have never been stored on the Orb— the device that captures and processes images to generate a supposedly anonymized unique iris code.
WLD is World’s native token, distributed to eligible World ID users in exchange for verification through iris scans, and has dropped about 6% in the past seven days, trading at $0.626 at the time of publication.
According to CoinGecko, the token has fallen over 70% in the past year.
Related: Texas buys the dip on Bitcoin (BTC), purchasing $5 million in BlackRock IBIT
Original article: “Thailand demands Sam Altman's World delete 1.2 million iris scan data”
免责声明：本文章仅代表作者个人观点，不代表本平台的立场和观点。本文章仅供信息分享，不构成对任何人的任何投资建议。用户与作者之间的任何争议，与本平台无关。如网页中刊载的文章或图片涉及侵权，请提供相关的权利证明和身份证明发送邮件到support@aicoin.com，本平台相关工作人员将会进行核查。
