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Here's EPIC's statement on why Worldcoin is a "potential privacy nightmare": >Worldcoin is a potential privacy nightmare that offers a biometrics-dependent vis

Here's EPIC's statement on why Worldcoin is a "potential privacy nightmare": >Worldcoin is a potential privacy nightmare that offers a biometrics-dependent vision of digital identity and cryptocurrency, and would place Sam Altman’s Tools for Humanity company at the center of digital governance. Worldcoin’s approach creates serious privacy risks by bribing the poorest and most vulnerable people to turn over unchangeable biometrics like iris scans and facial recognition images in exchange for a small payout. Mass collections of biometrics like Worldcoin threaten people’s privacy on a grand scale, both if the company misuses the information it collects, and if that data is stolen. Ultimately, Worldcoin wants to become the default digital ID and a global currency without democratic buy-in at the start, that alone is a compelling reason not to turn over your biometrics, personal information, and geolocation data to a private company. We urge regulatory agencies around the world to closely scrutinize Worldcoin. https://epic.org/epic-statement-on-privacy-risks-of-worldcoin/ https://epic.org/epic-statement-on-privacy-risks-of-worldcoi...

Twirrim 3y ago
> unchangeable biometrics Except for, say, glaucoma, detached retinas, injuries, all sorts of stuff that can impact the eyes. Sorry, you've been involved in a serious accident, you can no longer get your money!
- drewry 3y ago
  They address this in the whitepaper[0]: > To validate the quality of the algorithms at scale, their performance was evaluated by collecting 2.5 million pairs of high-resolution infrared iris images from 303 different subjects. These subjects represent diversity across a range of characteristics, including eye color, skin tone, ethnicity, age, presence of makeup and eye disease or defects. > It is important to note that many health conditions, like cataracts to a certain degree, do not impede iris biometrics. Already today, iris biometrics surpass the inclusivity of other PoP verification alternatives like official IDs since less than 50% of the global population has digitally verifiable identities. However, if the proof of personhood mechanism becomes essential for society, it is important that eventually every single person can verify if they want to. Although not currently established, there could be specialized verification centers to facilitate alternative means of verification for individuals with eye conditions, via e.g. facial biometrics. The introduction of alternative means of verification for World ID could potentially create loopholes. [0] https://whitepaper.worldcoin.org/ https://whitepaper.worldcoin.org/
  - wonderwonder 3y ago
    Issue is that if I lose my eyes I am suddenly both blind and poor at the exact moment where being poor has the most negative impact
  - kstrauser 3y ago
    So eyeless people have to jump through extra hurdles that the rest of us don't have to. The Worldcoin grand misvision is that their terrible World ID would be required to get government benefits, and yet makes it harder for some of the people who most need them to get them.
    - d-cc 3y ago
      Id imagine fingerprints will probably be sufficient no? Surely there are other biological identifiers that will serve as a functional replacement?
      - kstrauser 3y ago
        Maybe, but who knows? The Worldcoin people are making this a problem, so it's up to them to fix it without increasing the burden on people who can't use it as-it.
        MichaelZuo 3y ago
        When did this become a worldwide standard? There are many cases where those making a problem never fixed anything. In fact too many cases throughout history to enumerate.
    - nickff 3y ago
      I don't 'believe in' or support Worldcoin, but I don't think it's realistic to expect any one verification system will serve everyone who needs/wants any given service. Government ID, and even governments themselves don't serve everyone in need.
      - 3y ago
- baby 3y ago
  Isn’t it the same as losing your keys, phone, wallet, passport, etc.?
  - root_axis 3y ago
    Is a medical condition the same as carelessness? Probably there is some overlap, but no, they are not the same.
    - unholiness 3y ago
      The overlap GP is suggesting is that society has ways for owners who lose their passports and keys to nonetheless keep owning their stuff. Replacing lost passports and keys is slow and inconvenient, but possible.
      - baby 3y ago
        Yes, basically there is no perfect solution, people are complaining about air at this point.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- samstave 3y ago
  Can the blind auto-opt-out of retina scans - I mean, they cannot argue for or against validity of their retina/eye scans in any format.
calderknight 3y ago
Not very compelling. How exactly is it a potential privacy nightmare? Which aspect of whose privacy is at risk in what potential situation?
- zorrolovsky 3y ago
  The threat is so broad that giving examples is trivial. One that immediately comes to mind: Imagine science discovers that 99% of people with a certain feature in their iris is likely to develop colon cancer. The discovery leads to insurance companies purchasing iris data from OpenAI behind the scenes. A lot of poor people suddenly would get insurance mysteriously declined, or their policies would include a hidden clause in fine print stating that colon cancer is not covered.
  - throwawayadvsec 3y ago
    sometimes I forget that most people on HN live in uncivilized countries like the USA In normal countries that would mean we could save thousands of lives by warning people without even having to test them. Since denying insurance because of some random data from a data broker is completely illegal in any civilized country.
    - vore 3y ago
      You should stop tilting at windmills about a completely hypothetical example just to get your dunk in on the US like this.
      - otikik 3y ago
        Agreed, there's plenty of real examples one can use, no need to invent new ones.
    - tfehring 3y ago
      It’s completely illegal in the US too. Health insurers are extremely limited in the information they can use to price coverage, and in general they can’t outright deny coverage at all.
ilaksh 3y ago
Good point, and I'm not saying giving control to this random group makes sense, but at the same time, actual governments seem to be completely failing. The plan that governments have for resolving the geopolitical and economic problems seems to be WWIII. And then things like WorldCoin, but very poorly implemented, and people already distrust the government so much that those ideas never even reach lawmakers since they know they won't be accepted. The thing is though that humans may not be able to survive without a truly functional international government. And it also has to integrate with technology since that is ubiquitous now. There just isn't a way to do it without some kind of identification. Not trying means we will still descend into a cyberpunk dystopia. And then after hundreds of millions die in WWIII, we would still end up getting our irises scanned. It would just be administered by the superintelligent Chinese police robots. And we would also all have to learn Chinese and would be subjected to the CCP's social credit system.

Twirrim 3y ago

> unchangeable biometrics Except for, say, glaucoma, detached retinas, injuries, all sorts of stuff that can impact the eyes. Sorry, you've been involved in a serious accident, you can no longer get your money!

drewry 3y ago
They address this in the whitepaper[0]: > To validate the quality of the algorithms at scale, their performance was evaluated by collecting 2.5 million pairs of high-resolution infrared iris images from 303 different subjects. These subjects represent diversity across a range of characteristics, including eye color, skin tone, ethnicity, age, presence of makeup and eye disease or defects. > It is important to note that many health conditions, like cataracts to a certain degree, do not impede iris biometrics. Already today, iris biometrics surpass the inclusivity of other PoP verification alternatives like official IDs since less than 50% of the global population has digitally verifiable identities. However, if the proof of personhood mechanism becomes essential for society, it is important that eventually every single person can verify if they want to. Although not currently established, there could be specialized verification centers to facilitate alternative means of verification for individuals with eye conditions, via e.g. facial biometrics. The introduction of alternative means of verification for World ID could potentially create loopholes. [0] https://whitepaper.worldcoin.org/ https://whitepaper.worldcoin.org/
- wonderwonder 3y ago
  Issue is that if I lose my eyes I am suddenly both blind and poor at the exact moment where being poor has the most negative impact
- kstrauser 3y ago
  So eyeless people have to jump through extra hurdles that the rest of us don't have to. The Worldcoin grand misvision is that their terrible World ID would be required to get government benefits, and yet makes it harder for some of the people who most need them to get them.
  - d-cc 3y ago
    Id imagine fingerprints will probably be sufficient no? Surely there are other biological identifiers that will serve as a functional replacement?
    - kstrauser 3y ago
      Maybe, but who knows? The Worldcoin people are making this a problem, so it's up to them to fix it without increasing the burden on people who can't use it as-it.
      - MichaelZuo 3y ago
        When did this become a worldwide standard? There are many cases where those making a problem never fixed anything. In fact too many cases throughout history to enumerate.
  - nickff 3y ago
    I don't 'believe in' or support Worldcoin, but I don't think it's realistic to expect any one verification system will serve everyone who needs/wants any given service. Government ID, and even governments themselves don't serve everyone in need.
    - 3y ago
baby 3y ago
Isn’t it the same as losing your keys, phone, wallet, passport, etc.?
- root_axis 3y ago
  Is a medical condition the same as carelessness? Probably there is some overlap, but no, they are not the same.
  - unholiness 3y ago
    The overlap GP is suggesting is that society has ways for owners who lose their passports and keys to nonetheless keep owning their stuff. Replacing lost passports and keys is slow and inconvenient, but possible.
    - baby 3y ago
      Yes, basically there is no perfect solution, people are complaining about air at this point.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
samstave 3y ago
Can the blind auto-opt-out of retina scans - I mean, they cannot argue for or against validity of their retina/eye scans in any format.

calderknight 3y ago

Not very compelling. How exactly is it a potential privacy nightmare? Which aspect of whose privacy is at risk in what potential situation?

zorrolovsky 3y ago
The threat is so broad that giving examples is trivial. One that immediately comes to mind: Imagine science discovers that 99% of people with a certain feature in their iris is likely to develop colon cancer. The discovery leads to insurance companies purchasing iris data from OpenAI behind the scenes. A lot of poor people suddenly would get insurance mysteriously declined, or their policies would include a hidden clause in fine print stating that colon cancer is not covered.
- throwawayadvsec 3y ago
  sometimes I forget that most people on HN live in uncivilized countries like the USA In normal countries that would mean we could save thousands of lives by warning people without even having to test them. Since denying insurance because of some random data from a data broker is completely illegal in any civilized country.
  - vore 3y ago
    You should stop tilting at windmills about a completely hypothetical example just to get your dunk in on the US like this.
    - otikik 3y ago
      Agreed, there's plenty of real examples one can use, no need to invent new ones.
  - tfehring 3y ago
    It’s completely illegal in the US too. Health insurers are extremely limited in the information they can use to price coverage, and in general they can’t outright deny coverage at all.

ilaksh 3y ago

Good point, and I'm not saying giving control to this random group makes sense, but at the same time, actual governments seem to be completely failing. The plan that governments have for resolving the geopolitical and economic problems seems to be WWIII. And then things like WorldCoin, but very poorly implemented, and people already distrust the government so much that those ideas never even reach lawmakers since they know they won't be accepted. The thing is though that humans may not be able to survive without a truly functional international government. And it also has to integrate with technology since that is ubiquitous now. There just isn't a way to do it without some kind of identification. Not trying means we will still descend into a cyberpunk dystopia. And then after hundreds of millions die in WWIII, we would still end up getting our irises scanned. It would just be administered by the superintelligent Chinese police robots. And we would also all have to learn Chinese and would be subjected to the CCP's social credit system.