Kenya halts Worldcoin data collection over privacy and security concerns

Issues raised include use of eye scans to prove humanness' and financial inducements to sign up

The Kenyan government has barred the eyeball-scanning Worldcoin cryptocurrency project from recruiting new customers as it investigates data privacy and security concerns.

Kenya's interior ministry said the venture must stop collecting user data after raising a number of issues including: concerns over the secure storage of data that includes scans of a user's iris; that offering crypto in exchange for data borders on inducement"; inadequate information on cybersecurity safeguards; and placing large amounts of private data in the hands of a private business.