Sam Altman’s Worldcoin (WLD) token, a digital identity and universal basic income project, is facing new pressure in Latin America. Not even a month has passed since authorities in Ecuador and Colombia expressed serious concerns when new investigations against the protocol appeared.
This time, authorities in Chile and the Argentine province of La Rioja announced investigations against the firm. The reasons for the alarm among regulators are the fear of the methods used to collect private data.
New research causes Worldcoin (WLD) to fall
A few weeks ago, the province of Buenos Aires announced a fine and investigation against Worldcoin. Now, the authorities of La Rioja are proceeding in the same direction. According to local media, the province claims that the project takes advantage of the poverty of the population to obtain private data.
The Cybercrime Enforcement Unit of that province wants to ban the protocol’s activity within its jurisdiction. According to them, Worldcoin “collects extremely sensitive information such as the iris pattern, which is unique to each person.” This represents a latent danger to the security and privacy of citizens, the entity emphasizes.
The news portal claims that other provinces in the country are close to emulating these measures against Altman’s project. These actions are curious, considering that the project has an ambitious goal of turning Argentina into one of its epicenters. For this summer, they plan to open 50 collection centers in 10 provinces.
Worldcoin has ambitious expansion plans in Argentina. Source: Tiempo Argentina
On the other hand, the National Consumer Service of Chile (SERNAC) announced an investigation against the project for identical reasons. In this case, the lawsuit is against the Optimistic SpA group, which operates the protocol in Chile.
We have detected a series of violations that have occurred in this company, particularly involving information as sensitive as the capture of the faces and irises of consumers, many of them minors. Here there has clearly been a lack of adequate and timely information from the company regarding how it treats this highly sensitive data of thousands of people.
Andrés Herrera, national director of SERNAC.
🔴National Director, Andrés Herrera, filed an infringement complaint against Worldcoin, operated in the country by the company “Grupo Optimistic SpA” and about which we received a series of complaints and alerts from consumers. Here, the DN tells us more👇 pic.twitter.com/JDxDi8xZXY
— SERNAC (@SERNAC) August 29, 2024
WLD Token Reacts With New Pullback
As already reported, these complaints add to the cases of Colombia and Ecuador. In the first of these, the authorities also announced an investigation, which appeared in the midst of a huge expansion process of the protocol in that nation.
In a recent contact with CriptoTendencia, Worldcoin spokespeople highlighted their willingness to comply with all regulations of each country. They also expressed their full commitment to work with the authorities to clarify possible misunderstandings.
In any case, this new wave of pressure facing Worldcoin is manifested in the price of the WLD token. This coin has been in an almost uninterrupted process of collapse since its March highs. At the time of writing this note, the token is priced at $1.43 dollars per unit. During the session on Monday it established a new low for this cycle (after the ATH) at $1.39 dollars.
Meanwhile, its market cap remains below $590 million.
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