All eyes have been on Worldcoin (WLD) since the July 24 launch of its “World ID” system. The issues associated with the launch have been well reported at this juncture. They include possible onboarding security risks along with Worldcoin’s use of biometric data, which is now under investigation by governments in several countries — including the United Kingdom, France and Argentina.
In the tech industry, where many of the most significant innovations of the past few decades have occurred, there is often a tension between the drive to innovate and the need to consider ethical implications. As technologies like machine learning, facial recognition and big data analytics become more advanced, the ethical stakes also rise.
Paolo Tasca is a professor and economist. He founded two blockchain organizations, the University College London Centre for Blockchain Technologies and the Distributed Ledger Technology Science Foundation. He advises several organizations, including Ripple, INATBA and the International Organization for Standardization, among others. He has also consulted and worked with the United Nations, the European Parliament, the Cleveland Fed, the European Central Bank, the central banks of Italy, Chile, Brazil, Colombia and Canada, and Nexo. He previously served as the lead economist for digital currencies and P2P financial systems at the German central bank (Deutsche Bundesbank).