Kenya forms parliamentary committee to investigate Worldcoin

The Worldcoin cryptocurrency project has run into another roadblock — this time in Kenya, where the government has formed a 15-member parliamentary committee to investigate the controversial asset.

The Kenyan government formed a 15-member committee headed by Narok West Member of Parliament Gabriel Tongoyo to look into the controversial crypto project, reported a local daily. The parliamentary committee has 42 days to investigate the project and submit its report to the House committee.

Cointelegraph reached out to the MP to get some insights into his concerns and case against Worldcoin but didn’t get a response by publishing time.

The parliamentary investigation into the crypto project comes nearly three weeks after Kenya suspended Worldcoin’s operations after the project failed to comply with government orders to stop scanning users’ iris.

The Interior Cabinet Secretary Kithure Kindiki, who has played a key role in suspending Worldcoin operations, told the House committee that the government is concerned by Worldcoin’s activities registering citizens and collecting iris data, all of which he claims pose serious security risks.

Related: Worldcoin launch sparks debate over data privacy and future of AI

Apart from the parliamentary committee, the Worldcoin project has faced an all-out rejection from the various regulatory bodies in Kenya. The court also suspended Worldcoin’s activities after a case filed by the office of the data commissioner. The court ordered that the data already collected by Worldcoin between April last year and August 2023 must be preserved pending completion of the lawsuit.

Worldcoin, a digital ID-focused crypto project that offers its native cryptocurrency, WLD coin, for scanning the iris of users, launched amid controversies and hype. The project onboarded nearly 2 million users during its trial phase. However, as the project launched for the public in more than a dozen countries, various reports of the project’s controversial tactics surfaced, prompting governments in Nigeria, the United Kingdom, Argentina, Germany and Kenya to investigate the project.

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