Now that we have heard and seen the madness surrounding Worldcoin – people queuing to get their iris scanned and the crowd going berserk, leading to shut down of all three initial locations of orb operations in Bengaluru last Friday, what’s the big picture for Worldcoin in India? 

Pulling parallels to our government organised large-scale biometric scan that started 12 years ago, which also aims to create a unique digital identity and provide benefits to citizens via welfare schemes, it looks like Worldcoin might not be that different from Aadhaar- however, it is. 

India Leading The Way

Former Chief Economist of World Bank, Paul Romer referred to Aadhaar as the most “sophisticated system” he had ever seen, and considered it to be “good for the world if this became widely adopted.” As a prelude to organisations planning to adopt similar mechanisms, it is not surprising that Worldcoin also took inspiration from Aadhaar. In their 2021 blog that launched Worldcoins, the company mentioned that biometric approaches for proof of personhood is an accessible method and allows accurate verification of uniqueness, calling out parallels to Aadhaar in India. Though they admitted to challenges related to privacy and fraud detection, the company believes latest advances can solve it.  

While another method to approach proof-of-personhood is through the social-graph method, with a number of companies already adopting such a technique, scalability challenges impede its adoption. For a project such as Worldcoin, biometric was the viable option. Sam Altman, in his last visit to India, appreciated India’s efforts in building and adopting technology, where he also appreciated Aadhaar and UPI systems that emerged here. 

With an ambitious goal of 1 billion signups, Worldcoin announced their ambitious project two years ago. As of now, they have achieved over 2 million sign ups and more counting.  Interestingly, within five and a half years, Aadhaar clocked 1 billion registrations. 

India Unperturbed by Worldcoin

Though the goals for both projects are vaguely similar, the modus operandi are different. Creation of digital identity is one of the goals for Worldcoin, and crypto tokens being another. On successful completion of biometric scan, Worldcoin offers 25 ‘World tokens’ (WLD)- each WLD is a little over $2. While the broader goal of the company is to distribute wealth generated by AI back to society, the timeline to implement this goal is uncertain and will probably fall in the distant future. Furthermore, being a private organisation, no form of enforcement can be implemented, unless a government affiliation or law comes into picture – which obviously means that the distribution of universal basic income will not come to fruition. However, Aadhaar has no such obstacles. 

Though not mandatory, in order to avail welfare schemes, individuals need to possess an Aadhaar card. As per Economic Survey 2023, 318 Central schemes and over 720 state DBT (Direct Benefit Transfer) schemes come under Aadhaar Act, and these are facilitated via Aadhaar cards. 

In this grand scheme of things, where Aadhaar is functioning like a well-oiled machine, Worldcoin will not hold a candle to it. 

Rising Mutiny

While Worldcoin is making its way across the globe with setting up orb scanning locations across 20 countries (35 cities), not all has been rosy for the company. Investigations and watchful scrutiny has risen regarding Worldcoin operations. Yesterday, Kenya became the first country to ban Worldcoin operations owing to security and financial concerns. The suspension of Worldcoin also applies to other entities that operate in a similar fashion that “engage the people of Kenya.” It will not operate until the authorities ascertain there is no form of risk to the public, as they are looking into how and what would be done with people’s data. However, the orb locations across Kenya witnessed throngs of people. 

Within a week of its launch, UK and European regulators were quick to jump onto the scrutiny train. Countries including France and Germany have started investigating its operations over concerns of collecting sensitive biometric data. It’s not surprising that the EU, known for having stringent data regulatory policies in the world, will scrutinise the project, but it’s strange that they are looking into it after it’s been launched.

With countries waking up to rigorous scrutiny, it looks like India might follow the regulatory scrutiny too. Besides, with Aadhaar already in place and pretty much meeting the goals of ambitious Worldcoin, why have it here in India?

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