Sam Altman's Worldcoin meets Malaysian leaders as crypto project aims to bolster government ties

Main proponents of the iris-scanning Worldcoin WLD -0.70% project, Sam Altman and Alex Blania, recently talked to Malaysian leaders as the two try to improve government relations while simultaneously demonstrating they are committed to protecting users' data and privacy.

Blania, who is CEO and co-founder of Tools of Humanity, the lead developer of the Worldcoin project, sat down with representatives of Malaysia's digital ministry on Tuesday, according to a post on X.

"We met with Nordstar and its impressive lineup of portfolio companies including ... Worldcoin," posted the Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation, which also shared a photo of a meeting attended by Blania.

Last Friday, Blania and fellow Tools for Humanity co-founder Altman, jointly attended a video call with Malaysia's Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, according to a post made by the government leader. Blania reposted Ibrahim's post on Tuesday, thanking the Malaysian official.

Worldcoin's chief public advocates meeting with Malaysian officials comes on the heels of a series of moves that appear to be designed to demonstrate the project is taking concerns related to data collection and privacy seriously and is willing to work more closely with regulators and government officials.

One of the main premises behind Worldcoin is that by assigning people digital identities, in the future, it will be easier to distinguish humans from AI-powered actors.

Worldcoin's history of scrutiny

Last month, Worldcoin suffered two temporary bans as both Spain and Portugal ordered the project to halt collecting people's personal data. Worldcoin offers people cryptocurrency, in the form of WLD tokens, when users have their eyeballs scanned to create their own personal World ID. The scanning of people's irises and speculation over how Worldcoin might manage the biometric data have been among the leading concerns among privacy advocates.

Worldcoin's issues in Spain and Portugal were nothing new. After the project began giving out WLD tokens to new signups, many of whom are from the Global South, Worldcoin began facing scrutiny from regulators in several countries including Germany, France, Argentina and Kenya. Early last month, South Korea also announced an investigation into the project’s collection of sensitive information.

A big reason Worldcoin's troubles have grabbed headlines is because of Altman's close ties to the project. Altman rose to prominence as the CEO of OpenAI, developer of the high-profile AI platform ChatGPT.

Behind the scenes at Worldcoin, some were admittedly surprised by how much government attention the project attracted early on and felt unprepared to deal with the heightened interest and scrutiny, according to a person familiar with the matter. Top government officials, however, continue to show interest in speaking to Worldcoin amid the rising curiosity and concern revolving around artificial intelligence, including threats like deepfakes, the person also said.

Earlier this year, Tools for Humanity took steps to strengthen government relations when it named former U.S. ambassador to Austria Trevor Traina as its head of global affairs.

"Policymakers naturally have a lot of questions," Traina said in the blog post announcement. "They expect us as Worldcoin contributors to see to it that the project safely lives up to its mission, and it's our job at TFH to ensure those expectations are met."

New measures

In March, Worldcoin rolled out "Personal Custody," a new initiative that meant new World ID signups can no longer be request to have their biometric data stored and encrypted. At the time, Tools for Humanity's Head of Product Tiago Sada said the move should give people more "peace of mind."

Weeks later, the project said people who had signed up for World IDs could request Worldcoin permanently delete the numeric “iris code” created when their eyeballs were scanned. The project also said it would take age verification more seriously in order to prevent people under the age of 18 from signing up.

The measures were "developed in consultation with third-party privacy and security experts, and based on preliminary assessments and questions raised by data protection authorities in some places where Worldcoin is available," the project said at the time.

Worldcoin has assigned more than five million World IDs, according to the project's website.