REGULATION | Kenyan Police Reportedly Raid WorldCoin Offices, Confiscate Equipment and Data

A group of law enforcement officers reportedly conducted a raid on a warehouse operated by the WorldCoin in Nairobi seizing and removing various documents.

Subsequently, the law enforcement officers are said to have confiscated machines that they suspect contain the data collected by the company. The team took the data to the Directorate of Criminal Investigations headquarters for analysis.

Moreover, according to the country’s Data Commissioner, Tools for Humanity, the parent company of WorldCoin, had not revealed their actual intentions during the registration process despite Tools for Humanity having been registered as a data processor in the country.

This development follows the Kenyan government’s decision to halt the operations of WorldCoin and initiate an inquiry into the company’s activities.

Prior to this, WorldCoin had been scanning irises among Kenyan citizens and offering 25 World tokens in return. However, due to privacy experts expressing worries about the potential misuse of highly sensitive iris scan data, Kenyan Interior Cabinet Secretary, Kithure Kindiki, suspended the company’s operations.

According to the minister, the company does not have the appropriate permissions to operate in is country.

“The aforesaid entity is not registered as a legal entity in Kenya.” – Minister of Interior, Kenya

WorldCoin, on the other hand, has stated that it selected Kenya as the inaugural African nation for platform launch due to its flourishing technology sector and the substantial number of over four million Kenyan individuals reportedly engaged in cryptocurrency trading.

TFH also said it paused World ID verifications to work with local regulators to address their questions.

“WorldCoin remains committed to providing an inclusive, privacy-preserving, decentralized on-ramp to the global digital economy and looks forward to resuming its services in Kenya while working closely with local regulators and other stakeholders,” the company said following its suspension in Kenya.

The platform has also been introduced in several other countries such as Indonesia, France, Japan, Germany, Spain, and the UK. Regulatory authorities in certain nations have already declared their intention to similarly investigate WorldCoin’s operations.

WorldCoin, co-founded by Open AI Founder, Sam Altman, has raised investments from well-known venture capital companies, including a16z, the cryptocurrency arm of Andreessen Horowitz. Altman, whose Open AI is behind chat bot, ChatGPT, says he hopes the initiative will help confirm if someone is a human or a robot.