To prove you're human, a startup wants to scan your face with this
How do you know if the person on the other end of your dating app is a real person or AI? That's exactly what Sam Altman and the startup 'Tools for Humanity' hope to solve with their device, The Orb. It analyzes your face and eyes to verify you're human. They hope their scans will become required to access a variety of online services.
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Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
Sam Altman's Eye-Scanning Identity Tech Expands to UK
(Bloomberg) -- Tools for Humanity, a startup co-founded by OpenAI's Sam Altman, is rolling out its eyeball-scanning Orb devices to the UK as part of a global expansion of the company's novel identification services. Next Stop: Rancho Cucamonga! Where Public Transit Systems Are Bouncing Back Around the World Trump Said He Fired the National Portrait Gallery Director. She's Still There. ICE Moves to DNA-Test Families Targeted for Deportation with New Contract US Housing Agency Vulnerable to Fraud After DOGE Cuts, Documents Warn Starting this week, people in London will be able to scan their eyes using Tools for Humanity's proprietary Orb device, the company said in a statement on Monday. The service will roll out to Manchester, Birmingham, Cardiff, Belfast and Glasgow in the coming months. The spherical Orbs will be at dedicated premises in shopping malls and on high streets, said Damien Kieran, chief legal and privacy officer at Tools for Humanity. Later, the company plans to partner with major retailers to provide self-serve Orbs that people can use as they would an ATM, Kieran added. The company, led by co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Alex Blania, has presented its eye-scanning technology as a way for people to prove they are human at a time when artificial intelligence systems are becoming more adept at mimicking people. AI bots and deepfakes, including those enabled by generative AI tools created by Altman's OpenAI, pose a range of security threats, including identity theft, misinformation and social engineering. The Orb scan creates a digital credential, called World ID, based on the unique properties of a person's iris. Those who agree to the scan can also receive a cryptocurrency token called Worldcoin through the company. Tools for Humanity has faced regulatory scrutiny over privacy concerns about its technology in several markets, including investigations in Germany and Argentina, as well as bans in Spain and Hong Kong. The company said it doesn't store any personal information or biometric data and that the verification information remains on the World ID holder's mobile phone. Kieran said Tools for Humanity had been meeting with data regulators including the UK's Information Commissioner's Office and privacy advocates ahead of the planned expansion. So far, about 13 million people in countries including Mexico, Germany, Japan, Korea, Portugal and Thailand have verified their identities using Tools for Humanity's technology, the company said. In April, the company announced plans to expand to six US cities. There are 1,500 Orbs in circulation, Kieran said, but the company plans to ramp up production to ship 12,000 more over the next 12 months. (Corrects timing of rollout to cities outside of London in second paragraph) The SEC Pinned Its Hack on a Few Hapless Day Traders. The Full Story Is Far More Troubling Cavs Owner Dan Gilbert Wants to Donate His Billions—and Walk Again Is Elon Musk's Political Capital Spent? What Does Musk-Trump Split Mean for a 'Big, Beautiful Bill'? Cuts to US Aid Imperil the World's Largest HIV Treatment Program ©2025 Bloomberg L.P.
Bloomberg
11 hours ago
- Bloomberg
Sam Altman's Eyeball-Scanning Identification Tech Expands to UK
Tools for Humanity, a startup co-founded by OpenAI 's Sam Altman, is rolling out its eyeball-scanning Orb devices to the UK as part of a global expansion of the company's novel identification services. Starting this week, people in London, Manchester, Birmingham, Cardiff, Belfast and Glasgow will be able to scan their eyes using Tools for Humanity's proprietary orb device, the company said in a statement on Monday.
CNBC
12 hours ago
- CNBC
Sam Altman brings his eye-scanning identity verification startup to the UK
LONDON — World, the biometric identity verification project co-founded by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, is set to launch in the U.K. this week. The venture, which uses a spherical eye-scanning device called the Orb to scan people's eyes, will become available in London from Thursday and is planning to roll out to several other major U.K. cities — including Manchester, Birmingham, Cardiff, Belfast, and Glasgow — in the coming months. The project aims to authenticate the identity of humans with its Orb device and prevent the fraudulent abuse of artificial intelligence systems like deep fakes. It works by scanning a person's face and iris and then creating a unique code to verify that the individual is a human and not an AI. Once someone has created their iris code, they are then gifted some of World's WLD cryptocurrency and can use an anonymous identifier called World ID to sign into various applications. It currently works with the likes of Minecraft, Reddit and Discord. Adrian Ludwig, chief architect of Tools for Humanity, which is a core contributor to World, told CNBC on a call that the project is seeing significant demand from both enterprise users and governments as the threat of AI to defraud various services — from banking to online gaming — grows. "The idea is no longer just something that's theoretical. It's something that's real and affecting them every single day," he said, adding that World is now transitioning "from science project to a real network." The venture recently opened up shop in the U.S. with six flagship retail locations including Austin, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Nashville, Miami and San Francisco. Ludwig said that looking ahead, the plan is to "increase the number of people who can be verified by an order of magnitude over the next few months." Ever since its initial launch as "Worldcoin" in 2021, Altman's World has been plagued by concerns over how it could affect users' privacy. The startup says it addresses these concerns by encrypting the biometric data collected and ensuring the original data is deleted. On top of that, World's verification system also depends on a decentralized network of users' smartphones rather than the cloud to carry out individual identity checks. Still, this becomes harder to do in a network with billions of users like Facebook or TikTok, for example. For now, World has 13 million verified users and is planning to scale that up. Ludwig argues World is a scalable network as all of the computation and storage is processed locally on a user's device — it's only the infrastructure for confirming someone's uniqueness that is handled by third-party providers. Ludwig says the way technology is evolving means it's getting much easier for new AI systems to bypass currently available authentication methods such as facial recognition and CAPTCHA bot prevention measures. He sees World serving a pertinent need in the transition from physical to digital identity systems. Governments are exploring digital ID schemes to move away from physical cards. However, so far, these attempts have been far from perfect. One example of a major digital identity system is India's Aadhaar. Although the initiative has seen widespread adoption, it has also been the target of criticisms for lax security and allegedly worsening social inequality for Indians. "We're beginning to see governments now more interested in how can we use this as a mechanism to improve our identity infrastructure," Ludwig told CNBC. "Mechanisms to identify and reduce fraud is of interest to governments." The technologist added that World has been talking to various regulators about its identity verification solution — including the Information Commissioner's Office, which oversees data protection in the U.K. "We've been having lots of conversations with regulators," Ludwig told CNBC. "In general, there's been lots of questions: how do we make sure this works? How do we protect privacy? If we engage with this, does it expose us to risks?" "All of those questions we've been able to answer," he added. "It's been a while since we've had a question asked we didn't have an answer to."
