South Korea fines Worldcoin and Tools For Humanity for data privacy violations

South Korea’s Personal Information Protection Commission has fined Worldcoin and its development firm, Tools For Humanity, 1.1 billion Korean won ($830,000) for Worldcoin’s alleged violations in collecting and transferring personal data.

According to the PIPC, the Worldcoin Foundation did not properly notify the subjects of the purpose of collection and period of possession of their scanned iris data. The PIPC said before March 22, the project did not provide a Korean translation of its biometric data consent form.

The Worldcoin Foundation was fined 725 million won ($545,000) for violations in handling sensitive information and transferring the data overseas. At the same time, the regulators stated that TFH was imposed a 379 million won ($285,133) penalty for its breach of duty in the overseas data transferral.

The regulator also said the Worldcoin Foundation and TFH did not inform the subjects of the country where personal information is transferred and the name and contact information of the person receiving the personal information, as mandated by the local law.

Furthermore, it was reported that the foundation did not provide a measure for subjects to request their iris data to be deleted, and TFH did not sufficiently age-verify any signees under 14 until April this year.

However, the PIPC added that it did not ban sensitive data collection in South Korea, provided Worldcoin amends the issues. South Korea’s PIPC started investigating the project in February this year.

Worldcoin is a project under Tools For Humanity, a company co-founded by Blania and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. The project assigns “World IDs” to individuals who scan their irises on an Orb device as proof of humanness, with the vision of protecting people from potential negative impacts from AI. According to its website, signees are given WLD cryptocurrencies, while Worldcoin has over 6.7 million verified World IDs across more than 160 countries worldwide.

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Despite the penalty, TFH said today in a press release that it “welcomes” South Korean regulators’ decision.

“The PIPC’s investigation, which identified weaknesses in the original disclosures provided by TFH when it initially launched in South Korea and which have since been remedied, effectively concludes that TFH’s operations, including the use of the orb for humanness verification, are in compliance with South Korea’s Personal Information Protection Act,” TFH said in the release.

The company viewed today’s decision from the PIPC as an end to the country’s inspection of Worldcoin with a conclusion that the project’s iris-scanning orb for verifying “humanness” is regulatory compliant.