The Kenyan government has created a parliamentary committee investigating a controversial crypto project.
The Worldcoin cryptocurrency project has encountered another barrier – this time in Kenya, where the government has appointed a 15-member parliamentary committee to study the controversial asset.
The Kenyan government organized a 15-member committee headed by Narok West Member of Parliament Gabriel Tongoyo to investigate the controversial crypto project, stated a local daily.
The legislative committee has 42 days to investigate the project and present its report to the House committee. The parliamentary probe into the crypto project comes nearly three weeks after Kenya terminated Worldcoin’s activities after the project failed to comply with official directives to stop scanning users’ iris.
Interior Cabinet Secretary Kithure Kindiki, who suspended Worldcoin operations and told the House committee that the government is concerned about Worldcoin’s actions, including the registration of residents and collection of iris data, all of which he argues pose serious security dangers.
Apart from the legislative committee, the Worldcoin initiative has suffered an all-out rejection from the various regulatory organizations in Kenya. The court also suspended Worldcoin’s activities after a case brought by the data commissioner’s office.
The court decided to retain the data gathered by Worldcoin between April last year and August 2023 awaiting resolution of the lawsuit. Worldcoin, a digital ID-focused crypto project that gives its native cryptocurrency, WLD coin, for scanning the iris of users, launched amid debates and hype.
During its trial phase, the initiative successfully onboarded almost 2 million people. However, once the project was launched for the public in more than a dozen countries, numerous stories of the project’s problematic practices surfaced, causing governments in Nigeria, the United Kingdom, Argentina, Germany and Kenya to investigate the operation.
