In spite of the regulatory obstacles, the WLD token of the project experienced a 35% increase this week, rising from $1.60 on Sept. 19 to $2.16 on Sept. 26.
South Korea’s personal information authority levied a sanction 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 laws.
The Personal Information Protection Commission (PIPC) of the country 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.
The PIPC initiated its investigation in February in response to complaints that the company was potentially collecting biometric information in exchange for cryptocurrency.
According to the announcement, the privacy commission affirmed that the Worldcoin Foundation and TFH collected information, including retinal images 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 nearly 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 in accordance with 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 of personal information, as well as the names and contact information of the entities that receive the information.
The PIPC also emphasized that the company did not establish a procedure for requesting and processing the deletion of sensitive data.
In addition, the privacy monitor observed that TFH lacked sufficient age verification procedures to prevent minors under the age of 14 from registering on the application.
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