Privacy issues with the Worldcoin cryptocurrency project, a venture by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has been in talks since the announcement of its official launch. Several countries have now started considering its potential threats and are looking into the issue with much significance. 

Adding to this, Germany became the third European country ato admit investigating Worldcoin, after France and the US. Thereby, it seems like it would be tough regulatory road ahead for the venture.

The head of Bavarian State Office for Data Protection Supervision, Germany's data watchdog, recently noted that that they have been investigating Worldcoin since November 2022 over suspicion of the venture’s potential of accessing "sensitive data at a very large scale."

Despite being officially launched just last week, Worldcoin continues collecting iris scans from individuals all over the world for the past two years to add to its database. The company claims that this will enable users to verify their identity as humans in the developing age of artificial intelligence by connecting human identity to specific biometric data. While there is hint of intrigue in the project’s idea, it has raised concerns of the critiques. 

For instance, when reporters were dispatched to the project to have their irises scanned, Gizmodo and Futurism both reported that Orb operators did not ask for any prior identification or confirmation that participants are who they claim to be. In the underdeveloped world, participants in the project's pilot program have expressed feeling duped by the trade. Furthermore, since a blockchain is involved, it is unclear whether an individual can ask to have their data removed from the company's database.

However, neither these European data watchdogs nor Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, whose blockchain Worldcoin relies on, are persuaded that this type of "proof-of-personhood" venture is ready for a widespread adoption.

In a blog post regarding Worldcoin, Buterin claimed that "if even one Orb manufacturer is malicious or hacked, it can generate an unlimited number of fake iris scan hashes, and give them World IDs."

This only leads us to one conclusion, we will not be convinced until Worldcoin reveals what exactly they do with the collected data.