Worldcoin Faces Global Crackdown: Kenya & Indonesia Turn Up the Heat! 🕵️‍♂️💥

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Somewhere in the glimmering heart of the Nairobi legal quarter, Lady Justice Aburili Roselyne—whose patience for Silicon Valley shenanigans appears thinner than a hotel biscuit—has dealt a decisive blow to Mr. Sam Altman’s Worldcoin Foundation. The court, clearly unimpressed by the lure of crypto riches, declared the foundation’s Kenyan escapade illegal and insisted that all acquired biometric data be speedily dispatched to the digital afterlife within a mere seven days. Such is African efficiency when you’re not promised a free T-shirt.

One can imagine the courtroom tableau: technocrats in crisp suits, Web3 evangelists muttering of decentralisation, and a phalanx of government hawks gleefully wielding the Data Protection Act, 2019, like a newly-sharpened sabre. The Data Protection Commissioner has been awarded the parental duty of making sure all that precious iris and facial data meets a prompt and unsentimental deletion. Presumably, the Commissioner is now too busy for long lunches, much less crosswords.

Worldcoin’s Consent: Less Free Will, More Free Cryptocurrency

It emerged that consent for this biometric orgy was acquired via the time-honoured route of waving money at people and hoping they wouldn’t ask questions. Any romantic notions of “informed consent” were dashed; the court found the process as lawful as a dubious sandwich at a railway station buffet.

“An order of Mandamus compelling the Worldcoin Foundation and its agents to permanently delete (under the supervision of the Data Protection Commissioner) within seven days any biometric data collected in Kenya.”

Further decrees followed: not only must Worldcoin forgo data collection, but every earlier act of government collusion was officially annulled. This, of course, has not dissuaded Worldcoin from gamboling wildly in foreign meadows, notably introducing WLD ID in the US, where the only thing the authorities fear more than biometric data is a shortage of oat milk in Brooklyn.

Suits, Apps, and the Glorious Katiba Institute 🌍

This courtroom drama was set into motion by the indefatigable Katiba Institute, whose members no doubt wear gravity like cologne. They were deeply unamused by Altman’s roving crypto orb and its appetite for Kenyan ocular features, arguing loudly—and successfully—that the foundation’s circus acts trampled on privacy laws with the grace of a dancing elephant.

“Today, Lady Justice Aburili Roselyne has allowed our Judicial Review Application, where we challenged the collection, processing, and transfer of iris and facial images using the Worldcoin App and the Orb against the Worldcoin Foundation.”

Worldcoin, for its part, had launched its East African festivities in early 2023, offering the equivalent of Ksh7,000 in unregulated hope for every gleaming biometric token. Predictably, this led to large crowds, the sort that have the government clutching its monocle and muttering about “security and privacy.”

Indonesia Says ‘Not In My Backyard’ 🇮🇩🚫

Meanwhile, just as the Kenyan chapter closed, Indonesia’s Ministry of Communications and Digital (Komdigi) declared that Worldcoin’s paperwork was no more legitimate than a diploma purchased in an alleyway. Local partners stumbled over compliance, with PT Terang Bulan Abadi and PT Sandina Abadi Nusantara fumbling the legal ball with all the grace of a giraffe on roller skates.

Officials noted that these shadowy legal entities had been passing themselves off as the real deal while avoiding anything resembling due diligence. In the fine tradition of governmental understatement, Komdigi declared,

“Noncompliance with registration obligations and the use of the identity of another legal entity… is a serious violation.”

Market sentiment was not amused. WLD token holders faced a 6% price drop and a mild case of digital indigestion. Open interest shrank, mirroring investor enthusiasm for anything involving eyeballs and crypto. Komdigi, relishing the supervisory limelight, invited citizens to whistleblow any lurking tech charlatans and keep the Indonesian Internet at least as safe as their favorite krupuk vendor.

As the dust settles, one can only imagine Sam Altman drafting apologetic emails while the rest of the world solemnly ponders whether futuristic tech utopias should be built on a mountain of other people’s irises. Or, failing that, at least on a properly notarized stack of regulatory forms.

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2025-05-05 22:16