Proof of humanity protocol Worldcoin released its audit reports on July 28 as criticism of its data collection practices continues to mount. The new reports were conducted by security consulting firms Nethermind and Least Authority.
According to an accompanying announcement from Worldcoin, Nethermind found 26 security issues with the protocol, of which 24 were “identified as fixed” during the verification phase while one was mitigated and another was acknowledged.
Least Authority discovered three issues and made six suggestions, all of which “have been resolved or have planned resolutions,” the announcement stated.
Worldcoin first rose to prominence in 2021 when it announced that it would give away free tokens to any users who verify their humanness, which they could do by having their iris scanned by a device called an “Orb.” The project was co-founded by Sam Altman, the co-founder of AI developer OpenAI.
At the time, Altman and other team members argued that AI bots would become an increasing problem on the internet if people didn’t find a way to verify their humanness without giving up their privacy. According to the protocol’s documentation, The Orb produces a hash of the user’s iris scan but does not keep a copy of the iris scan.
Worldcoin initiated its public launch on July 25, after nearly two years of development and beta testing. But criticism of it erupted almost immediately. The United Kingdom’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) reportedly said the government body was deciding whether to investigate the project for violating the country’s data protection laws. French data protection agency CNIL also questioned Worldcoin’s legality.
The crypto community was divided over the project’s launch, with some participants seeing it as the start of a dystopian future where privacy would be eliminated. In contrast, others saw it as a necessary step towards protecting humans against malicious AIs.
The new audit reports cover a wide variety of security topics, including resistance to DDoS attacks, case-specific implementation errors, key storage and proper management of encryption and signing of keys, data leaking and information integrity, and others. Some issues found were the result of dependencies on Semaphore and Ethereum, including “elliptic curve precompile support or Poseidon hash function configuration,” the announcement stated.
All issues except one were fixed, mitigated, or have planned fixes. The one security issue that was not fixed by the time of verification has a severity of “undetermined” and is listed as “acknowledged.”
Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris has said he won’t be standing at the next general election but will keep campaigning for the Conservative Party.
In a letter to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, which he posted on X on Saturday night, Mr Heaton-Harris said after 24 years in politics, it had been an “honour and a privilege to serve”.
He thanked the people of Daventry, Mr Sunak and former Tory leaders, including Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, “for putting their trust in me”.
Mr Heaton-Harris, who has been serving as Northern Ireland secretary since September 2022, said: “I started as a campaigner and I’ll be out campaigning for @Conservatives at the next election because we are the only party that has and can deliver for the whole of the United Kingdom.”
He joins an exodus of Tory politicians who have announced they will be leaving Westminster at the next general election.
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More than 100 MPs from across the Commons have said they will not be standing.
Those who have announced their intention to leave parliament range from the longest-serving female MP, Labour’s Harriet Harman, to one of those only elected at the last election in 2019, Conservative MP Dehenna Davison.
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Of the more than 60 Tory MPs stepping aside, high profile names include former cabinet ministers Ben Wallace, Sajid Javid, Dominic Raab and Kwasi Kwarteng.
Back in March, Mrs May, 67, said she too had taken the “difficult decision” to quit the Commons after 27 years representing her Maidenhead constituency.
The last possible day for a general election is Tuesday 28 January 2025.