By Didi Rankovic – Reclaim The Net
Amid soaring inflation, Worldcoin leverages Argentina’s economic crisis, offering $50 in cryptocurrency for biometric data from financially vulnerable citizens.
Here’s news that at this point, in and of itself, is no news – Argentina is experiencing another wave of huge inflation. However, this time a new player is involved in the crisis – Sam Altman’s Worldcoin.
The project’s goal is to become the world’s largest human identity and financial network, and, it appears, achieve this “by hook or crook.”
To incentivize people to surrender the biometrics contained in the irises of their eyes, they are given a small amount of Worldcoin’s cryptocurrency, WLD.
In Argentina, reports suggest this includes to all intents and purposes exploiting the extreme financial vulnerability of people with low income, whose troubles are currently compounded by even what little money they make “melting away” through rampant inflation.
In numbers, writes Rest of the World, this means that people hit by an inflation rate of almost 300% are given $50 dollars worth of WLD when they have their eyes scanned.
Sounds like a very bad deal indeed – but then the cold reality in Argentina right now is that some pensioners, like a woman mentioned in the article, only receive $95 per month from their retirement plan.
That pensioner is described as “looking confused” after her iris was scanned – she was clearly egged on by a younger family member to do something, the ramifications of which she didn’t understand, and only did it “out of need.”
And she is one of some 500,000 people who have done the same so far in this South American country.
Even though data privacy laws are described as “not strong,” the exploitative nature of the business Worldcoin is pushing in a weak economy is causing two provinces to try to launch investigations into the goings-on.
Some security experts are wondering whether Argentina should follow in the footsteps of those European countries where iris scanning for such purposes is banned. But evidently, countries with high inflation, low employment, and in general economic distress are preyed upon much more easily.
The news about Worldcoin achieving its results under such circumstances casts a new light on the numbers it is presenting to the public as something positive – namely, “more than 10 million people in 160 countries having created a World ID and compatible wallet” while 5,195,475 people are said to have verified their World ID via the company’s iris-scanning Orb.
“Nearly 60 Worldcoin Orb centers have been set up across Argentina, with many located in working-class neighborhoods around Buenos Aires,” the report says, and notes that, “Last year, Worldcoin Orbs were available in 25 countries. Today, they are limited to Argentina, Chile, Germany, Japan, Singapore, Mexico, South Korea, and the US.”