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Worldcoin has confirmed the deletion of all biometric data collected from Kenyan citizens, following a High Court order that declared the project’s data collection practices unlawful under Kenya’s data protection laws.
The crypto-backed digital identity initiative, co-founded by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, is built around verifying “proof of personhood” by scanning users’ irises with specialised hardware in exchange for a digital ID and cryptocurrency tokens.
Kenya’s Office of the Data Protection Commissioner (ODPC) said all iris scans and related biometric identifiers gathered during Worldcoin’s 2023 enrolment exercise have now been fully erased from the company’s systems.
The action follows a High Court judgment delivered on May 5, 2025, which found that Tools for Humanity — the company behind Worldcoin — breached the Data Protection Act of 2019 by collecting sensitive personal data without valid consent and without carrying out a mandatory Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA). The court ordered the destruction of the data within seven days, under ODPC supervision.
Worldcoin began operations in Kenya in 2023, deploying its spherical “orb” devices to capture iris and facial scans. Participants were offered 25 free Worldcoin tokens, a move that attracted large numbers but raised serious concerns among privacy advocates and regulators.
Regulatory backlash followed swiftly. In August 2023, the Kenyan government suspended Worldcoin’s activities over fears that sensitive biometric data could be misused or transferred outside the country without adequate safeguards. Prior to the suspension, the ODPC had already directed the company to halt data collection, instructions that were reportedly ignored.
The deletion of the data brings to a close a contentious chapter in Kenya’s engagement with Worldcoin, while also highlighting broader tensions between rapid technological innovation and the protection of personal privacy in digital identity systems.
Although Worldcoin was initially presented as a tool for financial inclusion and secure digital identity in Web3 ecosystems, critics argued that biometric data is uniquely sensitive and that offering crypto tokens in exchange risked compromising the principle of informed and voluntary consent.
Kenya’s suspension of the project reflected these concerns, with regulators warning that large-scale iris scanning without robust legal and governance frameworks posed risks to data security and national data sovereignty.
Similar scrutiny has emerged globally, with regulators in parts of Europe and Southeast Asia investigating or restricting Worldcoin’s operations over privacy and consent issues. The Kenyan ruling now stands as one of the clearest legal challenges to the project’s data practices, reinforcing the need for stronger digital identity governance as emerging technologies scale.
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