South Korea’s watchdog levied a fine of 1.1 billion Korean won ($829,000) against the Worldcoin Foundation and its affiliate Tools For Humanity (TFH) for violating the country’s Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA).
The country’s Personal Information Protection Commission (PIPC) announced in a plenary session on September 25 that the company would be fined $829,000 for violating the Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA).
The regulator also issued corrective orders and improvement recommendations to the Worldcoin Foundation.
In February, the PIPC initiated its investigation in response to complaints that the company was potentially collecting biometric information in exchange for cryptocurrency.
Almost 30,000 South Koreans used iris scans
According to the announcement, the privacy watchdog affirmed that the Worldcoin Foundation and TFH collected information, including iris scans of South Koreans, without a legal basis for processing after the investigation.
According to PIPC, nearly 100,000 South Koreans downloaded Worldcoin’s application, with almost 30,000 employing ocular authentication. Nevertheless, the privacy watchdog asserted that the organization did not adhere to the PIPA’s regulations.
The regulator clarified that the Worldcoin Foundation failed to provide users with the purpose of the collection and the retention period by the law when it collected the biometric data.
The privacy watchdog also emphasized that the company failed to notify consumers that their data would be transferred to foreign countries.
The PIPC mandates that companies disclose the recipients’ personal information and the names and contact information of the entities that receive the information.
The PIPC also emphasized that the company still needs to establish a procedure for requesting and processing the deletion of sensitive data.
In addition, the privacy watchdog observed that TFH lacked sufficient age verification procedures to prevent minors under 14 from registering on the application.
Regulatory obstacles do not deter the Worldcoin token from experiencing a surge.
The native token of the project demonstrated substantial gains this week despite the obstacles it encountered in South Korea.
