Project World caused a stir with the idea of using eye scans for an ID service. Bavarian data protection officers now want to enforce the right to delete data. The world is fighting back.
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Munich/San Francisco (dpa) – A legal dispute is looming over the World identification project, which could ultimately provide clarity in the anonymization of data in the EU.
World, co-founded by AI entrepreneur Sam Altman (ChatGPT), wants to use eye scans to ensure that people can identify themselves on the Internet. Some data is encrypted and stored across different providers.
From the perspective of the world, this ensures anonymization. However, Bavarian state data protection officers came to the conclusion that this was not enough and further adjustments such as the right to delete the data were necessary.
Welt announced that it would appeal the decision. The company will primarily have standards for anonymizing data in Europe clarified in court. The question is at what point can one assume that information can no longer be associated with users.
World (formerly Worldcoin) sees a problem in the right to delete data. A basic idea of the project is that people can only create one profile in order to be able to clearly identify themselves. In the current system, the anonymized and modified data is used to detect if a user does not register for the first time. However, if the data were deleted, multiple registrations would be possible.
The Bavarian Office for State Data Protection Supervision also stipulates that express permission must be obtained for some processing steps. In addition, some data sets were ordered to be deleted. World is betting that the decision and the appeal process will be suspended until it is clarified.
With the service, people create a profile – the “World ID” – by scanning their iris. This is intended to be able to distinguish oneself from AI fakes on the Internet, for example. The profiles are not stored on World, but are transferred to the user's devices.
