In Argentina, Facing Surging Inflation, 500K Accept Worldcoin's Offer of $50 for Iris-Scanning

Wednesday Rest of World noticed an overlooked tech story in Argentina:

Olga de León looked confused as she walked out of a nightclub on the edge of Buenos Aires on a recent Tuesday afternoon. She had just had her iris scanned. 'No one told me what they'll do with my eye,' de León, 57, told Rest of World. 'But I did this out of need.' De León, who lives off the $95 pension she receives from the state, had been desperate for money. Persuaded by her nephew, she agreed to have one of her irises scanned by Worldcoin, Sam Altman's blockchain project. In exchange, she received nearly $50 worth of WLD, the company's cryptocurrency.

De León is one of about half a million Argentines who have handed their biometric data over to Worldcoin. Beaten down by the country's 288% inflation rate and growing unemployment, they have flocked to Worldcoin Orb verification hubs, eager to get the sign-up crypto bonus offered by the company. A network of intermediaries — who earn a commission from every iris scan — has lured many into signing up for the practice in Argentina, where data privacy laws remain weak. But as the popularity of Worldcoin skyrockets in the country, experts have sounded the alarm about the dangers of giving away biometric data. Two provinces are now pushing for legal investigations. 'Seeing that [iris scans have] been banned in European countries, shouldn't we be trying to stop it, too?' Javier Smaldone, a software consultant and digital security expert, told Rest of World.

Last month Worldcoin's web site announced that more than 10 million people in 160 countries had created a World ID and compatible wallet (performing 75 million transactions) — and that 5,195,475 people had also verified their World ID using Worldcoin's iris-scanning Orb.

But the article notes a big drop in the number of countries even allowing Worldcoin's iris-scanning — from 25 to just eight. While in less than a year Worldcoin opened nearly 60 centers across Argentina...

Read more of this story at Slashdot.