Iris Scan Biometrics and Iris
If your password leaks, you change it. If a scan of your eye leaks, you can't. In 2023, people in Kenya and Cambodia reportedly sold their Worldcoin eye scans for as little as $30. Buyers used them to open extra accounts. Borders and phones use this same kind of eye scan. If a copy of your eye got out, could you ever get it back? By the end, your eyes will never be for sale.
$30 is what one person's eye scan reportedly went for. A dinner out costs more than that eye scan.
Worldcoin's silver orb paid people in crypto to scan their eyes. In May 2023, BlockBeats and Gizmodo reported a black market. Worldcoin said what was sold was verified accounts, not scans.
In Kenya, Worldcoin paid about $50 in crypto, the IAPP says. Buyers still wanted someone else's sign-up, and the reason matters.
Your eyes stay the same your whole life. Whatever gets sold, nobody can take back. A buyer can keep it forever.
The buyers were reportedly in China, where Worldcoin wasn't available.
Worldcoin told Gizmodo it found several hundred fraud cases. Worldcoin said it added a way to recover accounts. In August 2023, Kenya suspended Worldcoin's orb.
South Korea fined Worldcoin about $790,000 in September 2024. Regulators said Worldcoin skipped proper consent and age checks.
In May 2025, Kenya's High Court ruled the collection unlawful. The court ordered Worldcoin to delete Kenyans' eye data. Thousands of Kenyans had traded their eye scans for coins.
In October 2025, Colombia and the Philippines ordered Worldcoin's scanning stopped. The Philippines said paying people pushed them too hard.
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Kenya and Colombia both ordered Worldcoin to delete eye data. No court can give those sellers new eyes.
A fingerprint check compares about 60 to 70 points. An eye gives a computer up to 250 features. That's why governments trust eye scans so much. But one of a kind doesn't mean hard to copy.
About 60 million people have had their eyes enroled in iris systems. Those people come from about 170 countries. That figure comes from John Daugman at Cambridge.
In a separate lab test, not the Worldcoin orb, Javier Galbally's team found a weak spot in eye scanners. Eye scanners save each eye as about 512 bytes.
In that lab, about 40 percent of fake eye pictures built from saved codes fooled the scanners. The EFF called the research a red flag.
Gizmodo carried the report on Worldcoin, the company behind the silver orb. Worldcoin built its orb to prove each account is one real person. Buyers reportedly paid strangers for that exact proof.
Worldcoin's orb was meant to stop one person from opening many accounts. Buyers reportedly bought strangers' sign-ups to do exactly that. So being one of a kind is what made those eyes worth buying. And every sign-up sold was tied to an eye for life.
In Kenya, the government had to step in and stop the scanning. If anyone offers money to scan your eye, say no.
Ask who keeps the scan of your eye. Ask how long they keep it. Ask if you can make them delete it.
Strangers can already see photos of your face. Your eye scan lives wherever you hand it over.
A camera lights your eye with light you can't see. Software turns the pattern in your eye into a short code. Next time you look, a fresh code gets checked against the saved one. Whoever holds your saved code can keep it forever.
The CaraComp write up on this goes deeper on how eye scans work. The CaraComp page also lists what to ask first.
Cara Candelario points to one more worry. An eye can hint at health conditions. A leak could expose more than who you are.
Skip close-up eye filters on social media. Check which phone apps can use your camera. Switch off the camera for apps you don't need.
Colombia's order covered nearly 2 million people. A court can erase Worldcoin's files. Nobody can erase what was reportedly sold.
Your eye can't be reset, so the worry is real. But you usually have to say yes to an eye scan.
Tonight, tell your children and your parents one rule. Nobody gets paid for a scan of their eye. If someone offers, your family walks away.
If a copy of your eye gets out, you can never get it back. So you say no before anyone scans your eye.
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