Worldcoin cofounder Alex Blania responded after the Kenyan
The government suspended the mass registration which had been going on
in the country.
Speaking on Thursday, August 3, Blania apologized for not coming out
on time to address the issue with Kenyans.
“TFH has paused World ID verifications in Kenya as we continue to work
with local regulators to address their questions. We apologize to
everyone in Kenya for the delay. World ID is built for privacy. We look
forward to resuming operations, while continuing global rollout,” he
stated.
The process, which had attracted multitudes was suspended by the
Interior Cabinet Secretary (CS) Kithure Kindiki on Wednesday, August 2.
“The government has suspended forthwith activities of World Coin and
any other entity that may be similarly engaging the people of Kenya
until relevant public agencies certify the absence of any risks to the
general public whatsoever.
Appropriate action will be taken against any natural or juristic person who
furthers, aids, abets, or otherwise engages in or is connected with the
activities afore-described,” read part of the statement.
Police were also deployed to disperse hundreds of Kenyans queuing in
various parts of Nairobi Central Business District (CBD) for the World
Coin data collection.
The exercise had been going on in different places across the country
and had seen hundreds of thousands sign up for it.
All that was needed was to scan the iris in exchange for Worldcoin tokens
worth Ksh 7700.
Worldcoin is a new cryptocurrency launched by Sam Altman, CEO of
OpenAi (ChatGPT), and his co-founder Blania. The purpose of
Worldcoin is to create a new form of privacy-preserving digital identity
referred to as World ID through which a user can authenticate that they
are human and unique, and not bots or AIs. This new “proof of
personhood” concept relies on the World App as well as a purpose-built
hardware component to verify human biometrics referred