Worldcoin banned in Portugal over privacy concerns

The move is a further blow to the controversial initiative, which has already been banned several times around the world.

Worldcoin was launched by Altman in 2023 with the mission of becoming a “world ID” for the crypto market.

The scheme uses iris patterns to provide users with a private digital identity. According to Altman, this solves one of the biggest problems in crypto – the proliferation of pseudonyms and vulnerability to spam bots and scams, as well as increasingly convincing deepfakes created by AI.

However, the project has been hampered by complaints about data breaches. In particular, parents have complained that Worldcoin collects data from their children without consent.

There are also broader concerns about the way the data is collected, stored and managed.

Portugal’s National Data Protection Commission (CNPD) has imposed a three-month temporary ban while it conducts an investigation and will make a final decision afterwards.

The authority said its measures were based on “preserving the fundamental right to data protection, especially of minors”.

According to CNPD, more than 300,000 users have already provided their biometric data in exchange for payment in the Worldcoin cryptocurrency.

The Portugal ban comes three weeks after the Spanish data protection authority banned Worldcoin.

The company is based in Germany and is also being investigated there by the Bavarian State Office for Data Protection Supervision. This investigation is expected to be completed in a few weeks and the decision could have a profound impact on Worldcoin’s ability to operate within the EU.