Kenya orders Worldcoin to cease biometric data collection

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Worldcoin must delete all user data and cease collecting biometric data from Kenyans, the country’s High Court has ruled in the latest blow to Sam Altman’s controversial project.

Lady Justice Aburili Roselyne ruled that the Worldcoin Foundation and its agents must cease “from further processing, collecting or dealing in biometric data.” They must also not obtain consent from their users through inducement or luring them with digital tokens.

The ruling is the culmination of a two-year legal battle that pitted Worldcoin—now known as World—against two local advocacy groups: Katiba Institute and ICJ Kenya. The latter is the Kenyan chapter of the International Commission of Jurists.

The court further quashed Worldcoin’s decision to collect user data without undertaking a Data Protection Impact Assessment, which violates the country’s Data Protection Act. Worldcoin paid users who offered their biometric data with the WLD token, which also violates the Act.

The project must permanently delete all user data within seven days, under the supervision of the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner (ODPC). The judge also revoked its data processing certificate.

ICJ Kenya welcomed the ruling, describing it as a “powerful precedent, not just for Kenya, but globally affirming that rights must remain paramount in technological innovation.”

“The court’s directive to delete all unlawfully obtained biometric data is not just a legal necessity but a critical act of restoring data subject rights and reaffirming human dignity in the digital age,” it stated.

The ruling is the latest blow to Worldcoin in what was one of its largest markets. At launch, the project lured hundreds of thousands of Kenyans with the reward of 25 WLD tokens, worth $55 at the time.

However, shortly after, the Kenyan government turned against the project. In August 2023, it ordered Worldcoin to shut down and just weeks later, legislators were grilling company executives, including CEO Alex Blania, over how it was utilizing Kenyans’ data. The lawmakers recommended that the government fully shut down the project for ‘espionage.’

While it claimed it would resume operations in 2024 after authorities dropped some of the charges against it, Worldcoin has never recovered the Kenyan market.

Shortly after the ruling in Kenya, Indonesia’s Ministry of Communications and Digital Affairs suspended the project over “suspicious activity.”

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