Topline
Worldcoin, the cryptocurrency and digital ID project launched by OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman, hopes to launch a global network similar to India’s Aadhaar system, according to Reuters, modeling the project after a biometric identification system used by nearly 90% of India’s population.
Nearly 90% of India’s population has registered to use the identification system—which Worldcoin is ... [+]
Key Facts
The Aadhaar system was launched in 2012 as part of an initiative to provide each Indian resident with a unique identification number and to crack down on duplicate, fake or stolen IDs used to benefit from government programs and welfare schemes, according to the Unique Identification Authority of India.
An Aadhaar is a 12-digit number issued by the UIDA to any Indian resident “irrespective of age and gender” that is produced by eliminating duplicate copies of demographic and biometric data recorded by the Indian government.
An Indian resident can register for an Aadhaar by providing basic demographic information, including name, date of birth, age, address and gender.
The resident must then provide biometric information in person, including ten fingerprints, two eyeball scans and a facial photograph.
Every application for an Aadhaar is encrypted after completion, according to the UIDAI, which said each application is “exhaustively checked for validity.”
An Aadhaar allows residents to effectively move from one part of India to another, the UIDAI said, in addition to allowing the Indian government to streamline its process of delivering social welfare services.
Paul Romer, the Nobel-winning former chief economist of the World Bank, called the Aadhaar system “the most sophisticated ID program in the world,” after it grew exponentially even though 40% of India’s population did not have a birth certificate and about 60% lacked bank accounts two years before the system was introduced.
Crucial Quote
Tiago Sada, Worldcoin’s head of product, engineering and design, told Reuters that a “really good analogy for the type of impact something like Worldcoin can have is the Aadhaar project in India.” The company applauded the biometrics used in the Aadhaar system earlier this year, adding the system was effective in reducing duplicate enrollments in social welfare programs.
Big Number
1.27 billion. That’s the estimated number of living people in India who have been issued an Aadhaar number by UIDAI as of July 2022, according to India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology. This is over 89% of India’s total population—the largest in the world—of 1.4 billion.
Tangent
A hacker claimed earlier this week to have breached the Aadhaar of about 815 million people, according to Hindustan Times. The breach—the largest data leak in the country’s history, according to the Times—included passport information that was extracted from Covid-19 test details linked to registered Aadhaars. The Indian government did not respond to the incident.
Key Background
Altman launched Worldcoin alongside Alex Bania and Max Novendstern earlier this year, after estimating that 4 billion people worldwide “lack a legal, digitally verifiable identity.” Worldcoin uses an eye-scanning “orb” to give users a unique digital identity to verify whether they are human. A cryptocurrency—the Worldcoin token—then becomes available to verified users, allowing users to make payments, purchases and transfers with it, in addition to other digital assets. Some cryptocurrency exchanges have listed the token or stated their intention to do so, including Binance. Altman said the goal of Worldcoin is a “global financial and identity network based on proof of personhood,” noting its importance in an era defined by AI. Worldcoin has suffered from technical issues since its launch, including some people who have been scanned who say they have been unable to claim their tokens, three orb operators told Forbes earlier this year. A Kenya-based operator told Forbes that Worldcoin was not responding to hundreds of complaints, after Worldcoin’s network went offline less than two weeks after its launch. Worldcoin also suffered from an exploit that allowed some operators to trick the orb into creating multiple accounts for the same person.
Further Reading
Worldcoin Aims To Set Up Global ID Network Akin To India’s Aadhaar (Reuters)
