How Much Crypto would You Sell Your Privacy For?
Privacy in the online world is an important aspect as it ensures that you can move around with relative safety and for everyone that will mean something different. For myself in our current life we live a pretty public one due to the work we undertake and the advocacy we do.
But I understand the importance of remaining anonymous in today's world and the implications it has on people especially when it comes to data and personal bio information. I also remember the uproar a few years ago when employers were moving to fingerprint scanning for employee log in and log off at work.
Unions fought the push and much of that movement was squashed and individual codes were provided instead of cards. Although some workplaces still do have fingerprint ID scanners to ensure the correct staff are logging in and out each day. Despite employers saying this was to make payroll easier and to automate payment systems, people were still concerned about providing biometric data to their employer and they weren't confident in how that information would be secured and kept safe.
Now here we are in the future and something truly fasinating is happening, there appears to be a cost people are willing to accept to give away free data and it is a lot lower than you can imagine.
image source
Would you provide your biometric data for this month?
Yesterday we were amongst the first decentralised news sites to publish an article on Worldcoin which is a brain child of ChatGPT co-founders who also wanted to develop their own Crypto Currency with high hopes of implementing a universal basic income.
Despite the project having some initial tokenomics issues like 75% being provided for FREE to the majority of the community there was no real financial backing to support sustained growth. A lot of it heavily relies on people investing which is the main driver of Digital assets.
The other notable concern is that in order to participate in the ERC-20 token users needed to download the app and register an account. Once registered you need to visit one of their orbs and scan your eyes.
The bot would than verify your retina's with your account and this was an attempt to ensure everyone had only one account and increase human support over bot.
But it has caused quite the stir with many people raising the privacy issues and data collection issues of the program in the event of hack.
How little or how much is it worth?
The most amazing thing to be out there is how little the amount of money people will trade their personal identity for. At current prices everyone who is lining up to provide their personal biometric data to a bot is being paid around USD50 worth of Worldcoin.
Now I understand the need to tackle bots in the sector but to go as far as scanning peoples retina's to prove identity is quite the impressive feat when you consider there is Know Your Customer regulations which require people to provide 100 points of ID.
Switching from ID to Retina scanning doesn't change the issue of the project not being in line with the broader decentralised movement and in my opinion is a lot more invasive in their application.
Further issues arise with what happens if that data falls into the wrong hands, while it can be debated that you can't do much with retina scans, many people around the world now use them for smart locks. Given the app is on your phone the question needs to be raised that can the app be hacked, your retina data accessed and then used to remotely unlock your phone and access your person information or accounts?
A bigger question also remains is what happens if and when the project fails like 99% of the other projects out there, will the company erase everyone's data or if well into the future something occurs will they be held liable?
It is an interesting moral dilemma and while I initially downloaded the app myself I freaked out when the little bot came on the screen trying to scan my face. This is information even as someone who is quite public I don't want an app having as I don't know what it can lead to.
So there it is, USD50 and people will sell you their eyes
image sources provided supplemented by Canva Pro subscription. This is not financial advice and readers are advised to undertake their own research or seek professional financial services.
https://leofinance.io/threads/melbourneswest/re-melbourneswest-8krkcwsr
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It is a very complex topic because privacy and potential security issues could be affected at some point. In fact, Vitalik Buterin spoke about this and mentioned some key points to keep in mind, although the most concerning is what will happen if something goes wrong, since we are practically offering our identity.
That people will benefit from $50, I do not doubt, and they may need it urgently, so I do not think they will take long to say "I will do it." As an interesting fact, there was a project that promised to be revolutionary and was later closed saying that they did not achieve more growth. Now it appears as "The project is no longer live", and who knows what they have done with the information collected all that time, although they assure that they permanently deleted the personal information, it is something I doubt very much.
I found what you wrote very interesting. Greetings!
Thank you for reading through, and yes I agree with you. There are too many unknowns
Not safe enough and who knows what retina scans can be used for in the future.