Sam Altman gained significant popularity after the successful launch of OpenAI, but most recently, he and his World Foundation (formerly Worldcoin) were summoned by the Kenyan High Court to delete all data collected from people in Kenya.
The data collected by World includes the biometric data such as facial image and eye scan, collecting the data has violated people’s right to privacy.
In its order, the Court granted seven days to fully delete the data and directed data protection officers of the Kenyan government to supervise the deletion process.
The judgment of the court came following the legal action by the Katiba Institute and ICJ Kenya over how the foundation is handling the collected data from the people of the region.
Worldcoin is fully restricted from collecting any biometric data in Kenya
In the May 5, 2025 ruling, Justice Aburili Roselyne restricted the foundation from collecting any biometric data in the country and nullified the earlier decision allowing such data collection, stating that the company failed to conduct a proper data protection impact assessment—a legal requirement to safeguard users’ privacy.
The ruling quotes, “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.”
It is worth noting that World started operating in 2023 in Nairobi, where it started offering cryptocurrencies worth Ksh7,000 to resident for scanning their biometric data, such as eyes and face.
Yet after growing criticism, the government stopped this operation by Worldcoin, because to get free crypto, the public sites were becoming crowded, raising concerns over the safety and privacy.
A quick dive into the prices of Worldcoin (WLD)
According to a warning issued on CoinMarketCap, ‘Addresses by Holdings’ under analytics only includes WLD tokens on the Ethereum chain. It does not account for tokens on Optimism or World Chain.
As of writing the price of WLD was $0.8760 with a loss of 5.23% in the past 24 hours, and its market cap is down by 3.94% now at $1.17 billion.
Source: CoinMarketCap
Worldcoin reached its highest trading price of $11.82 on March 10, 2024, and dropped to its lowest at $0.5817 on April 7, 2025. Over the past 30 days, it traded as high as $1.25 and as low as $0.5941.
In the past seven days, the price of WLD fell over 22%, and in the 52 weeks time frame prices are down by 86.19%. Continued decline in the price of WLD has not raised concern over its losing relevance in the wider market.
