Blow to Worldcoin as court orders deletion of data

Worldcoin has suffered a blow after the High Court ordered deletion of data it collected from Kenyans in 2023.

Justice Roselyne Aburili while delivering her judgement today said the controversial biometric data collection exercise led by the crypto-based identification project Worldcoin was conducted without adherence to Kenya's data protection laws She said Worldcoin used financial inducements to obtain the data from Kenyans instead of applying the data protection principle of informed consent.

This, the judge said was illegal, unconstitutional, and a gross violation of privacy rights. "There was lack of the data protection principle of informed consent, instead there was financial inducement, " the judge said.

The judge ordered Worldcoin to delete all the Kenyans Biometric data it unlawfully collected via its orb with immediate effect.