More than 360,000 Argentines have had their iris readings for $22

In the midst of the economic crisis, some The iris of 360,000 Argentines was read in exchange for receiving crypto assets equivalent to $22. This is a campaign by Worldcoin, a crypto-asset wallet that, in the name of financial globalization, seeks to register customers as unique users and then claims to delete biometric data.

So far, More than 3 million people have registered in 35 countries. Although there are those who question the project in Argentina due to the use of personal data, especially of people in poverty, many of them access the stock exchange because they need money or simply do not care what their data can be used for.

Through a report by Deutsche Welle, some testimonies of people who participated in the experiment became known. The economic difficulties that the country is going through are the main pillars of more and more people joining the proposal of the company that claims to delete the information an hour after it is taken.

Jose Maza, who works as a cook at the hospital, told the German agency that he decided to allow the iris examination because he needed money. “We need money. And with the moment we are going through in the country, everything is going well. It's not a lot but it helps. I've survived the coronavirus, and I think this won't do anything for me,” he said.

“It will be easy to get money without making any mistakes,” said Diego Vilan, an unemployed citizen. You hand in your biometrics and all that, but sometimes necessity wins out.

There are others who doubt or discover this, but prefer to pass by. This was the case of Franco, a man from Buenos Aires who came to Plaza Hosay to see what the initiative was about. “If even the government doesn't know what this is for, I'll know even less, so I'd rather not get involved.”

“Biometric data is never used again,” explained Thiago Sada, head of product, engineering and design at Tools for Humanity, after consulting DW. “We simply created a cryptocurrency that we believe should be a right for people to claim,” but this raises doubts among some experts such as Enrique Chaparro, secretary of the Vía Libre Foundation, who asked: “What happens if someone misuses that digital data? ? If it incriminates you in fraud or money laundering. How do you prove it wasn't you? It is problematic enough to give these public identifiers to states. What happens when we give it to a private company?

MM with information from DW

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