Kenya Police Raid Worldcoin Warehouse in Nairobi

Key Insights

• Kenya police, with the support of inter-agency officials, raided Worldcoin offices with a search warrant
• The raid was overseen by the Office of Data Protection Commissioner Immakwail Kassuyt.
• Tools for Humanity, the parent company of Worldcoin, did not reveal their true intentions at the time of registration

A group of Kenyan police raided the warehouse of the Worldcoin (WLD) cryptocurrency project in Nairobi and took away documents. This is reported by the publication KahawaTungu.

According to the publication, the officers, with the support of interagency officials, went to Worldcoin offices with a search warrant. After seizing the equipment and documentation, the police handed them over to the headquarters of the Criminal Investigation Department for analysis.

The raid was carried out under the supervision of the Office of Data Protection Commissioner Immakwail Cassuyt. It is known that Tools for Humanity, the parent company of Worldcoin, did not reveal its true intentions at the time of registration.

Activities of Worldcoin Kenya

Worldcoin says it has chosen Kenya as the first African country to launch the platform due to the rapidly evolving technology space and over four million Kenyans who are already trading crypto.

Last week, the Kenyan Home Ministry suspended the Worldcoin project in the country, although the country’s Digital Economy Minister, Eliud Ovalo, said the agency contacted Worldcoin back in April and concluded that its activities were in line with Kenya’s Data Protection Law.

This comes amid news that Chinese residents are buying Worldcoin accounts with Kenyan verification, thereby bypassing their country’s restrictions. In the early stages, the cost of creating an account ranged from $6 to $7, but later it increased to $9-$12. This business was run by about ten Chinese teams, resulting in thousands of false user accounts per day.

Read also! What Could Go Wrong with Worldcoin? Examining the Risks

Investigations against Worldcoin

Earlier, the head of the Bavarian State Office for Supervision of Data Protection, Michael Will, the German regulator, began proceedings against the American startup back in November 2022. The reason for the investigation was concerns around the processing of sensitive data in large volumes – the technology of scanning the retina “has not been properly analyzed for a specific purpose in the field of financial information transfer.”

Read also! How to Withdraw From Worldcoin to M-Pesa ✔ 8 Simple Steps

The activities of the project are also being studied by the UK Information Commissioner’s Office. The French data protection regulator (CNI) also questions the legality of collecting user biometric data.