Overview

• Worldcoin, co-founded by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, announced a major expansion to its eye-scanning identity platform, World ID 2.0, with integrations with major tech firms including Shopify, Mercado Libre, Minecraft, Reddit and Telegram.
• The 2.0 upgrade aims to make it easier to distinguish between bots and verified humans online, offering on-site onboarding into its proof-of-personhood service in Singapore and Mexico.
• World ID 2.0 introduces new verification levels to accommodate users who opt to give different amounts of verification data, including a base-level World ID that forgoes retina scans and allows users to authenticate themselves on their own devices.
• Worldcoin's retina-scanning orb, used to authenticate first-time users, has sparked concerns about user privacy, but the company insists it doesn't save eye scans and only uses them for first-time authentication.
• Nearly five million people have scanned their eyes in exchange for World IDs since Sam Altman unveiled the orb in 2021, including more than 1% of the population of Chile, Argentina, and more than 2% of the population of Portugal.