Tools for Humanity, the company behind Worldcoin co-founded by Sam Altman, collected iris scans using metallic ‘Orb’ devices in Kenya starting mid-2023, offering about 25 WLD tokens worth KSh 8,000 each.
A May 2025 High Court ruling declared the collection unlawful for lacking proper assessments and inducing consent, ordering permanent deletion supervised by the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner.
On January 20, 2026, the ODPC verified the erasure, calling it a protection of privacy rights, while advocates like Katiba Institute celebrated it as a milestone showing no technology is above the law—though some online skeptics question if the data was truly wiped.
Worldcoin operations were banned in Kenya after the crypto firm had collected biometric data of thousands, who were given 50 USD in return.
The Worldcoin project rolled out globally on June 24, 2023.
But despite its ambitions of a decentralised global currency, the project was met with privacy concerns and questions about the security of the biodata the company was collecting from Kenyans.
The verification process involved scanning eyeballs through an Orb in exchange for a digital identity called World ID.
