Scanning your iris with a giant orb is more of a spectacle than a hedge against artificial intelligence. Worldcoin’s orb is futuristic and mysterious, and extremely appealing to our human curiosities, much like the infatuation with the Apple Headset. 

Users give away their biometric data, in exchange for free cryptocurrency, or so they say. Beyond the novelty of the giant orb, there are ethical questions, privacy concerns, and accessibility issues. 

It’s marketed as a human-verification tool as well as a financial instrument, rather than a humanitarian tool. 

As of July 10, 2024, Worldcoin has six million users, and has fallen short of its one billion target by 2023, signaling the need for alternative solutions. It’s not hard to see masses of biometric data being used to surveil the public, especially when owned by tech’s new poster boy, OpenAI CEO, Sam Altman. 

Biometric data was once stored on the orb but implemented a Personal Custody feature in March, meaning it’s stored on an individual’s device, not the orb. A little too late. 

A more human alternative 

Rarimo, a privacy-first ZK social protocol, watched the Worldcoin story play out, and had an idea – to use the most universally distributed identity infrastructure to prove humanity. The passport. 

All a person would need is their phone, passport, and the RariMe app, rather than access to the orb. RariMe launched on June 26 and is part of the ecosystem of solutions built on the protocol, including Freedom Tool which powered the anonymous voting app, Russia2024. 

The success of Russia2024 inspired Rarimo to consider other use cases for passports on-chain. Other non-voting use cases include a humanitarian airdrop to Ukrainian people that uses proof of citizenship to ensure people in particular countries get aid directly, rather than being circumvented by a third party. 

The digitization of public services and bureaucratic processes will also require proof of humanity. 

What’s revolutionary about RariMe is the combination of passport verification and zero knowledge technology. According to Rarilabs Director, Kitty Horlick, passports are just the starting point, and they plan to expand into other types of identity documents. 

The benefit of using passports and phones is the ease of use and accessibility. While Horlick supports the work of Worldcoin, she believes we need more options in this space.  

“You don't want a system where the only way that someone can prove their humanity is by having a passport or by scanning the eyeballs, because then you have this really coercive system where people have to do one thing, and if they decide they're not comfortable with it they’re excluded,” Horlick said. 

“When we get to the point where we need to verify our humanity for more internet services, it's critically important that people are in control and can select the proofs that they're comfortable with.” 

Horlick touched on the problems with Worldcoin, including the centralized nature of the way it generates the hash, which theoretically a government could ask to claim it or access it. 

RariMe went one step further than Worldcoin, by making users the identity issuers. 

Worldcoin is an issuer business. They scan the iris and derive a unique hash to attest that a person is unique and valid. RariMe, on the other hand, does not have an issuer as passports are already verified by governments. This means users are self-issuing their identities and the entire architecture is intentionally fragmented and decentralized. No entity provides attestation so it cannot be seized or regulated. The identity markers that passports provide are also a lot more diverse. 

“Worldcoin is focused on financial use cases whereas RariMe is about social use cases. Part of the reason they are financial and we are social is because when you scan your iris, the only thing it allows you to prove about yourself is your humanity. With a passport, you can prove your humanity, citizenship, age and gender, without revealing your identity,” she added. 

By allowing people to verify, privately store and reuse their passport data, Horlick believes it is the pathway into ZK social graphs and next generation apps. 

Being able to store and prove interactions, instead of just characteristics, expands the kinds of use cases users can bring anonymity. Users could, for instance, prove their participation in a certain number of polls or elections to gain access to closed activist groups. 

“The future of a lot of social media and connection won’t be all shared as one singular feed that algorithms make different. It will be more segmented, individualistic and hyper-personalized, with AI bots generating proofs of incredibly niche social data to suggest things or match you with people. None of that data will be public, so we will end up with these very personal experiences that are private at the same time,” Horlick concluded. 

It's critical for the verification process to come from neutral, decentralized infrastructure to avoid a future where one company owns everyone’s identities and sees every action we take. Where there’s centralized control, there’s corruption. 

The beauty of the blockchain is that it’s inherently trustworthy. No terms and conditions needed.