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Markkula Center for Applied Ethics

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iris scan technology collecting data from human eyeball

iris scan technology collecting data from human eyeball

Worldcoin Promised Free Crypto if They Scanned Their Eyeballs With “The Orb.” Now They Feel Robbed.

Irina Raicu, director of internet ethics, quoted by Buzzfeed News.

Worldcoin, a cryptocurrency company trying to revolutionize universal basic income and "lift millions out of poverty" has run into some tricky ethical problems as they collect the biometrics of those promised wealth through their service. 

By focusing much of its attention on poorer nations, the company is taking advantage of “vulnerable people,” said Irina Raicu, internet ethics program director at Santa Clara University’s Markkula Center for Applied Ethics.

“Long before deployment is even considered, have you really done that research and had that interaction with the people on the ground, and do you have that understanding of the realities in different parts of the world?” she said. “And here it seems like all of that is entirely backward.”

Irina Raicu, director of internet ethics, quoted by Buzzfeed News.

Ethics
media, internet