Monday, 16 June 2025

Biometric, Digital ID ‘World’ Project Launches In United States, Here’s Where


OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s ‘World’ project, which verifies humans using biometric technology, has launched in “six key innovation hubs.”

“Altman co-founded ‘World’ in 2019 — known as Worldcoin until last year — to create a global identity verification system for people,” CNBC stated.

World utilizes iris scans and blockchain.

Americans who choose to participate can verify their ‘World ID’ (digital ID) in Atlanta, Austin, Los Angeles, Miami, Nashville and San Francisco.

World also offers a crypto token called ‘Worldcoin’ (WLD).

“The United States of America stands at the forefront of artificial intelligence innovation. Now, it’s time for the world’s AI hub to embrace the essential counterpart: proof of human,” World wrote in a release.

“World – the largest human-centered identity and financial network – is now available in the USA, bringing its vision to the heart of the digital revolution,” it continued.

Cointelegraph reports:

The data from World’s Orb scan can be used to make a World ID on the company’s platform that aims to verify that a user is human and can be used to verify that with other platforms, including Minecraft, Reddit, Telegram, Shopify and Discord.

The company has faced scrutiny from regulators and many jurisdictions have probed World over privacy concerns. Some countries, including Spain and Portugal, have suspended World’s activities over its data collection practices.

In addition to World’s US rollout, the company said at an event in San Francisco on April 30 that it would partner with Visa for a “World Visa card” to launch later this year for those who have scanned their eyeballs, which allows for payments using WLD tokens and other cryptocurrencies.

The online dating giant Match Group, which owns Tinder, Hinge, Match.com and Plenty of Fish, will also begin a pilot program testing out World ID for its apps.

The firm said that the project aims to provide dating app users with the means of verifying that the profiles they interact with represent real people seeking real connections.

Per CNBC:

Starting Thursday, the company is opening six flagship U.S. retail locations where people can sign up to have their eyeball scanned: Austin, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Nashville, Miami and San Francisco.

At an event in San Francisco on Wednesday, the venture announced two high-profile partnerships: Visa will introduce the “World Visa card” this summer, available only to people who have had their irises scanned by World, and the online dating giant Match Group will begin a pilot program testing out World ID and some age verification tools with Tinder in Japan.

World’s “At Last” event in Fort Mason — which featured a performance by singer and rapper Anderson .Paak — included a live demo following a keynote by World Network co-founders Alex Blania and Altman. The demo, which got off to a slightly slow start due to some interference from the stage lights, showed the audience how to pair the Orb to their phones. At one point, the person doing the demo had to take off his glasses so the Orb could see his face a little more clearly.

“We wanted a way to make sure that humans stayed special and central, in a world where the internet was going to have lots of AI-driven content,” Altman said during the keynote.

The latest version of the Orb is powered by the Nvidia Jetson processor, the company said. World plans to deploy 7.500 orbs by the end of the year in the U.S.

The company said it also plans to open an assembly line for manufacturing orbs in Richardson, Texas.


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