u/Free-Path-5550 — reddlx

TLDR: One of Sam Altman's lesser known startups "World" just signed a deal with Tinder, Docusign and Zoom in an another attempt to steal your biometric data. I mean verify you're human.

Background:

I've been low key following this company of Sam Altman's for awhile now. They first showed up at some event and offered people money in the form of their own crypto WLD valued at the time of $7 (now worth .25 cents) for a scan of your eye. I guess when that didn't work they went back to the drawing board and have now come back announcing on April 17th a partnership with Tinder, Zoom and Docusign. Pitching a new way to capture your data as "Proof of Humanity"

Tinder:

In tinder when you give up your data i mean give "Proof of Humanity" you get a cool verified "human badge", with five free boosts that increase your profile visibility. I guess it would be worth it for some people.

Zoom:

In zoom it cross-checks your orb scan against a live selfie and your video frame to prove you're not a deepfake in a meeting. I do understand the need for this as some poor guy in Hong kong wired $25 mill to some scammers he thought were his co-workers few years ago over zoom.

Docusign:

lets signers attach a "Proof of Humanity" credential to a document signature, so businesses can confirm a real person authorised an agreement rather than an automated agent or bot. Docusign wants a way to prove a human actually signed off on the important digital stuff. Does make sense here I guess.

More on World:

World claims 18 million verified users across 160 countries. the us rollout started in 2025 and biometric laws here are looser than the eu (aka non existant ), which is probably why they're pushing American partnerships now.

the regulatory track record outside the us is what you would expect... bad. The countries of Brazil, Kenya, Hong Kong, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, Spain, Portugal and Germany have all either banned, halted or sanctioned the company over privacy violations and dodgy data collection practices. With Germany ordering the deletion of iris data for violating GDPR. A 2022 Mit technology review investigation found World were recruiting users in developing countries without meaningful informed consent to what they were really giving up when they agreeded to participate in the program. I'll let you make your own judgements on this company and its true intentions.

**Giving your data is "**Optional " for now:

So far each company is offering this as an optional for now feature and users will not be locked out of the platforms though i didn't catch anything about restrictions yet.

In reality we know how the system usually works, it rolls out as optional then before you know it, its mandatory. On sites like tender there is the added social pressure. Having a badge proves you're human and my guess "is it will work something akin to X.com where those profiles with badges get higher visbility while non-verified gets pushed down. Though just speculating at this point so dont take it as fact."

Either way I agree the underlying problem is real. As technology advances there needs to be some kind of safety mechanism or something but im not sure this is the correct solution. Additionally the bigger question is whether Sam Altman and his company World are the right people to be holding that data and gets to prove who is human or not.

Feel free to let me know if i got anything wrong, need a correction or want to push back in the comments.

Im dyslexic and ASD I use ai to help make my writing better but the story, research are mine.

Edit - added technology review article "Deception, exploited workers, and cash handouts: How World recruited its first half a million test users"

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