“A Worldcoin employee has defrauded me of 731 euros”: a minor suffers the risks of the cryptocurrency that the iris collected

Adrián, a 15-year-old boy from San Fernando de Henares (Madrid), was offered “free money” at the Plenilunio shopping center. It was September 2022. He had gone with a group of friends to a burger and the “money” offer was from a commercial for Worldcoin, a new cryptocurrency that required a photo of the iris to register. Adrián did not give it much importance: “The truth is that at 15 years old I only kept the free money thing,” he says. Nobody asked them their age or asked for documentation.

The entire group of teenagers were discharged. For more than a year, Adrián collected digital currencies, which were then worth only a few cents. At the end of 2023 his value began to rise. In February 2024, Adrián had raised 731 euros. Adrián wanted that money in cash, but since he was a minor he couldn’t open a bank account to withdraw it. A Worldcoin employee in Plenilunio, whom he knew from San Fernando, offered to settle it for him in exchange for a 10% commission. Adrián accepted and never saw the money again.

On March 6, the Spanish Data Protection Agency (AEPD) provisionally prohibited Worldcoin from continuing to collect irises from Spaniards. The AEPD had received 13 complaints denouncing insufficient information or the collection of data from minors. The company says it has never intended to collect data from minors: “Worldcoin has always required individuals to be at least 18 years old to obtain a World ID. [el documento virtual que se consigue con la foto del iris y permite reunir monedas]as is clear in the terms of service,” a spokesperson for Tools for Humanity, the organization behind the currency, tells EL PAÍS.

The app asked to confirm the age, but it was easy to lie if a minor aspired to that “free money.” Worldcoin chose to establish age verification in December 2023 in every place in Spain where photos of irises were taken due to news about “a couple of minors.” Adrián’s example allows us to think that those “couple of minors” were much more in total. Just this Wednesday, when EL PAIS asked Worldcoin about this case, the organization published a post extending this verification to the entire world: “As of yesterday, this process was implemented globally. This advance, as well as the ability to unverify “Worlds ID was developed in consultation with external privacy and security experts, including the Bavarian State Office for Data Protection Supervision,” says a spokesperson. The company Tools for Humanity, promoter of Worldcoin and co-founded by Sam Altman, has its European headquarters in Germany, hence the relevant authority for these matters is that of Bavaria, with whom the AEPD collaborates. The option to unverify the World ID by permanently deleting the code created from a user’s iris was another request from data protection agencies.

Nobody laughs here

For Lidia Fernández, Adrián’s mother, the problem of age is only one. “They have laughed in my face, not just at my son, and I am 50 years old,” she says. The scam that Adrián has suffered shows the dangers of a data collection organization with more holes than it seems. The cunning and mischief of a handful of young people shows that it is not easy to create a cryptocurrency that “gives away money” without facing many other dangers.

In December, before Worldcoin became popular, Adrián had already collected coins worth more than 200 euros. He went to Plenilunio to ask the people at Worldcoin. There he met E., a young man he knew because a friend frequents the pool where Adrián works as a lifeguard in the summers. He asked her how to change money without having access to a bank and E. told him that he would do it for a 10% commission. Adrián accepted and the next day he had the money. That ease later became a hook for a larger amount.

In February he went to ask for help again, but now he had collected 731 euros. Adrián had collected the coins from his mother and another relative of his and had continued to enter thanks to the application’s gifts for getting new users. The coin had also reached a value of more than 8 euros. Until the suspension of the AEPD, some 400,000 Spaniards had had their irises photographed in exchange for “free money.” “The eye thing doesn’t scare me because I give my eye to the phone, it’s on the internet, I don’t care,” says Fernández.

What he doesn’t care about is money. E. said that she couldn’t return it if they didn’t give her an extra 200 euros to unlock a card. Fernández did a bizum on an acquaintance of E.’s so that there would be a trace: “When I was going to do the bizum, it already smelled bad to me, but my son didn’t want to lose the 731 euros,” he explains. EL PAÍS has tried to collect the version of the alleged fraudster, but has hung up the phone after receiving the call from this newspaper.

When E. continued to refuse to return the money and blocked Adrián on WhatsApp, Fernández couldn’t take it anymore: “I started shouting at home to give me the 200 euros or that I was going to look for him, I know his parents.” Both families live just two streets apart. Fernández received the money by bizum from another boy’s account while he was still screaming at home.

E. and Adrián have exchanged dozens of messages. E. has made several excuses: “the money did not arrive”, “if you are a minor you cannot have a Worldcoin account”, but perhaps the most curious was to allege that, precisely, Worldcoin is free money and is worth nothing: “Your mother He already has the money. You have earned this because it was a project, it is not money worked. Your mother already has the money so it’s over,” she wrote to him on WhatsApp.

The limit was extortion

The limit arrived a week ago. He had asked for time and Fernández and his son decided to wait: “Partner, I don’t have money, do what you want, now I have too many problems for this nonsense, I haven’t received any money,” wrote E. After waiting and several attempts to contact To find out if the money would arrive, E. threatened to report Adrián and his family for harassment and extortion. Her mother, Lidia Fernández, said enough: “I report her when in the end she says that she is going to report my son for extortion. So I say, let’s take it for granted, let’s go to the police station,” says Fernández. The complaint was filed last Friday and at the moment there has been no other news.

Adrián and E. found another path that shows risks in the process of recruiting Worldcoin users. Each user has a code with which they can invite five people. Every time your code is used you receive coins. Adrián collected codes from seven other people and went to Plenilunio so that new users could use it when registering. One of the possible methods was to convince E. to give it to people before taking their photo. But E. wanted 50% and they never reached an agreement. Employees who photograph the eyes, like E., are the responsibility of outsourced operators, the company says.

Also, they say, they carry out anonymous checks on the sites and these employees receive continuous training. Tools for Humanity also says its customer support department responds to any complaints. Lidia Fernández wrote to that department. Since she did not receive a response, she even sought out the company’s European manager, Ricardo Macieiras, and wrote to him on Facebook. She too was left without a response. “It’s impossible to talk to them,” she says.

Tools for Humanity’s stated interest in the iris is to be able to demonstrate the humanity of each internet user in a world where machines, thanks to AI, will be able to reproduce the majority of people’s behaviors. “Worldcoin is a new technology that understandably raises many questions. The project is working closely with its relevant data authority to address your questions. People who support the Worldcoin project also welcome questions and opportunities to explain how the technology used by the Worldcoin project to demonstrate humanity provides consumers with unparalleled control and choice regarding their data,” a spokesperson for the Worldcoin project tells EL PAÍS. the company.