Worldcoin Suspends Services in Several Countries!

Worldcoin announced that it has suspended one of its operations in India, Brazil, and France markets. This effectively means the Orb verification function has been suspended offline. The Orb is a system designed to facilitate recruitment in areas where traditional identification documents are not present, by scanning the pupils for identity verification.

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The Company was offering rewards in USDC to local Orb operators to incentivize the offline recruitment process. However, later they started making their payments in their local token WLD.

According to Moneycontrol’s report, Worldcoin has “quietly suspended” the Orb verification process in India. Moreover, foundations like Tools for Humanity have mentioned that Orb had limited plans in India, France, and Brazil from the beginning.

In particular, Orb’s collection of users’ private data and its sensitivity in the recruitment process led to ethical discussions about the project. Critics argued that the project was unethical and a “dystopian nightmare”. Even the market regulators showed skepticism towards the project. German officials initiated an investigation into Worldcoin in 2022. The United Kingdom’s data regulatory body also threatened an investigation into the project. Kenya outrightly banned Worldcoin’s operations in the country.

In August, security platform CertiK reported that there was a security vulnerability in Orb that could allow attackers to bypass the verification process and run Orb without proper identification. This situation called into question the security of the project.