Dear privacy pros,
It was wonderful to meet many of you in person at the Asia Privacy Forum 2023 in Singapore last week, as part of the Singapore Personal Data Protection Commission's annual PDP Week.
Thank you for making the event a tremendous success, with record-breaking turnout including attendance from regulatory authorities across all of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, as well as countries further afield such as Nepal, Qatar, Eswatini and Egypt. I trust you gained useful insights from the discussions on stage, and enjoyed enriching conversations with privacy colleagues during the breaks and networking sessions.
A number of sessions during the conference touched on the topic of artificial intelligence governance, and, given that I mentioned Worldcoin and soul-bound tokens in earlier introductions, I thought it would be interesting to talk about the formal launch of the World ID, which was recently announced 24 July.
Co-founded by Sam Altman, who is of course now better known as the CEO of OpenAI, the Worldcoin Foundation sets out to solve a problem that is anticipated to get worse with further improvements in generative AI, large language models and widespread use of such technologies. As it becomes harder and harder to distinguish humans and bots online, proof-of-personhood solutions like World ID plug this gap by authenticating that: a registered account is controlled by a real person, this person can only set up one unique account, and this can be done in a way that does not compromise privacy.
At first glance, the proposed solution from the Worldcoin Foundation appears to fall short on this last count, as it requires users to submit a privacy-invasive iris scan using a hardware device known as the Orb. While this immediately brings dystopian visions from "1984" or "Brave New World" to mind, the technology behind the World ID actually seeks to preserve privacy in a couple of interesting ways when you delve a bit deeper.
For example, when registering for a World ID, only the user's public key generated through the World app is exposed and only a specialized hash signed by the Orb is uploaded to the database of World ID users, rather than the full iris scan. The database is currently centralized, but there are plans to replace it with a decentralized on-chain system, and even control of the project is expected to eventually devolve to a decentralized autonomous organization. It would be difficult to link actions taken by a registered user online to their in-real-life identity, due to the use of zero-knowledge proof technology, so these actions cannot be linked back to the user's private key.
This is not to say he technology has no flaws or other possible points of failure but if we think there is a pressing need for a proof-of-personhood solution, we need to start considering whether World ID, or one of the many other alternatives like social graph-based solutions, provide the optimal outcome from a privacy perspective.
Having recently gone through many nerve-racking moments attempting to purchase tickets to the upcoming Taylor Swift concerts in Singapore for my niece — and eventually losing to scalpers controlling a large number of bots — I can certainly appreciate the need for such proof-of-personhood technology. Of course, it is also easy to see more serious applications of such technology, from allowing individuals to cast a vote in an election without needing to step out of the house to granting every person a universal basic income when many traditional jobs are reconfigured or made redundant due to AI technology.
As always, the future looks very exciting for all privacy pros. Unfortunately, this is where I get off the train, as I will be relinquishing my post as the IAPP Country Leader, Singapore, 31 July. I enjoyed writing these introductions and was immensely gratified when some of you came up to me during the APF to say you actually read them.
It has been an absolute honor serving you, and if the camaraderie I witnessed at the recent APF is any indication, I am confident the privacy community will continue to flourish and be an important countervailing force against possible harms that may arise in the human race's relentless technological march towards progress.
Signing off for the last time.
