Tinder partners with Worldcoin for real-person verification. What are the regulatory issues with scanning irises to exchange for cryptocurrency?

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s crypto project Worldcoin recently announced a partnership with the world’s largest social platform Tinder, allowing users to verify their identity, age, and authenticity through World ID. This is the first time a crypto identity verification project has been used to address the pain points of mainstream consumer social platforms. If World ID proves effective in social scenarios, it could potentially expand to community platforms, anti-fraud verification, content creator identification, and even higher-risk areas such as finance and voting.

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Worldcoin Partners with Tinder for Real-World Verification

According to an official released video, Worldcoin has integrated with the social platform Tinder. Users can now see Tinder in the Worldcoin App’s app store and verify their identity and age on Tinder using Worldcoin’s World ID. This marks the first large-scale adoption of a crypto-based identity verification mechanism by a social platform, addressing long-standing issues such as fake accounts, bots, and underage risks.

Tinder was launched in 2012 and quickly gained popularity with its swipe-right to like and swipe-left to pass matching mechanism. The platform uses algorithms that consider factors like distance, age, gender preferences, and activity level to determine exposure order. In recent years, issues like fake accounts, bots, and age falsification have continued to erode user experience and platform trust. With the introduction of World ID, Tinder can verify “you are human and of legal age” without requiring users to disclose their real names or personal information.

This is also a milestone event for crypto identity entering mainstream consumer social platforms. If World ID demonstrates its effectiveness in social scenarios, it could expand to community platforms, anti-fraud verification, content creator identification, and even higher-risk areas such as finance and voting.

What is Worldcoin? A global identity network centered on proof of humanity

Led by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s team, Worldcoin aims to build a global identity network. Its core concept is Proof of Human: using a hardware device called Orb to scan the iris, generating a unique World ID for each user to distinguish humans from bots and prevent multiple accounts or duplicate airdrops.

The typical process involves:

Physical location scans iris

Generate IrisCode / World ID

Users receive a small amount of WLD tokens and an on-chain identity credential

Worldcoin claims to only retain irreversible digital codes and does not store original iris images.

Controversies and Regulations: The irreversible risk of biometric data

(German regulators require Worldcoin to delete non-compliant data, sparking digital identity verification controversies under EU GDPR)

Although Worldcoin emphasizes privacy protection, the risk of biometric data leakage and irreversibility makes it highly scrutinized worldwide. Regulatory authorities in Spain, Germany, and other regions have demanded the deletion of certain biometric data and imposed suspensions or restrictions on scanning operations. The partnership with Tinder will likely bring Worldcoin’s compliance and privacy governance back into focus.

(Worldcoin faces multiple violations! Fined 1.1 billion KRW by Korea)

This article discusses the regulatory issues surrounding Tinder’s partnership with Worldcoin for real-world iris verification in exchange for cryptocurrency. Originally published on Chain News ABMedia.