Kenya Orders Sam Altman's World to Delete Citizens' Biometric Data Within 7 Days

The World project, headquartered in the US, aims to assign “World IDs” to global citizens as an “international proof of personhood”.

Written by Radhika Parashar, Edited by Manas Mitul | Updated: 6 May 2025 15:44 IST

Kenya Orders Sam Altman's World to Delete Citizens' Biometric Data Within 7 Days

Photo Credit: Reuters

Kenya is the first country to bring the World project under investigative scrutiny

Highlights

The World.org site shows over 12 million "unique humans" registered
The project uses its own eye-scanning device named "Orb"
Its official website shows registrations from over 160 countries

Kenya has ordered Sam Altman's World Web3 project to delete collected biometric data of its nationals. The Nairobi High Court said that the controversial human ID project failed to acquire valid consent from the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner (ODPC) before obtaining the eye scans of Kenyan citizens to give them their World IDs. Neither World nor Altman have reacted to the development yet.

The World project, headquartered in the US, aims to assign “World IDs” to global citizens as an “international proof of personhood.” These IDs will eliminate the need for people to share their personal details for web-based interactions.

In August last year, representatives of the project had set up booths in several parts of the world to collect iris scans of people through its own one-of-a-kind machine called the Orb. Spain and Germany are among other regions that have flagged World's biometric collection as problematic in the past.

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Here's What Happened

Justice Aburili Roselyne has directed the World project to permanently delete the facial images and eye scans of its Kenyan subscribers. A window of seven days has been issued for World to comply with the court's orders. A designated data protection officer will be overseeing the process.

The court has further prohibited World from collecting any more biometric data from Kenyan citizens.

The Katiba Institute and the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ Kenya) spearheaded the case against the World project, arguing that its data collection practices were invasive and risky.

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Joshua Malidzo Nyawa, a counsel for the Katiba Institute, has called the development a winning moment for the right to privacy. The institute also posted a detailed overview of the court's verdict on X (formerly Twitter).

> JUDGMENT: High Court safeguards the right to privacy
>
> Today, Lady Justice Aburili Roselyne has allowed our Judicial Review Application, where we challenged the collection, processing, and transfer of iris and facial images (biometric data)using the World Coin App and the Orb… https://t.co/7SisPV7ZCd> > — Katiba Institute (@katibainstitute) May 5, 2025

Altman's response to Kenya's decision remains awaited for now.

Kenya's History With the World Project

In 2023, Kenya became first country in the world to bring the World project, previously called “Worldcoin”, under investigative scrutiny. However, in 2024, the country vaguely ended its probe on Altman's Web3 project.

In June 2024, Kenyan authorities told Altman to register his World project with the Office of the Data Protection Commission (ODPC) and the Communication Authority of Kenya (CAK).

However, the Katiba Institute and the ICJ Kenya reached out to the High Court alleging that the project is violating the rights of the Kenyan citizens by collecting their data without the necessary government permissions. The two parties submitted their arguments to the court in March 2025.

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Further reading: Cryptocurrency, World, Sam Altman, Kenya

Radhika Parashar

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Radhika Parashar is a senior correspondent for Gadgets 360. She has been reporting on tech and telecom for the last three years now and will be focussing on writing about all things crypto. Besides this, she is a ma... more »