Singapore’s Deputy Prime Minister Gan Kim Yong announced that authorities are investigating seven individuals suspected of illegally buying and selling Worldcoin accounts and tokens, as per a statement on Sept. 9.
Yong, who also chairs the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), said:
“The Police are investigating seven subjects for their suspected involvement in offering the services of buying or selling of Worldcoin accounts and tokens, which constitute offences under Payment Services Act 2019.”
Yong noted that the MAS does not recognize Worldcoin as a qualified payment service under the PS Act. However, he clarified that those who trade Worldcoin accounts and tokens as a business may be engaging in payment services.
According to him, such transactions could be illegal and used to facilitate criminal activities like money laundering and terrorism financing.
Due to this, he warned consumers:
“Consumers should beware of inducements to transfer access of their digital payment token wallet or World ID as these accounts could be misused by third parties. We caution consumers against doing so.”
Worldcoin legal challenges
This investigation into Worldcoin in Singapore comes amid the company’s ongoing legal troubles globally.
Over the past year, regulators like Kenya, South Korea, and Germany have launched probes into Worldcoin’s use of iris biometric data, citing potential breaches of local data protection laws.
However, Worldcoin has continued to abide by local and international laws publicly. The firm has also made critical components of its technology open source to ensure transparency and further enshrine the protection of its users’ data.
Meanwhile, Worldcoin co-founder Alex Blania expressed ambitions to grow the platform on a scale similar to Facebook to increase its utility. Presently, the crypto identity project’s website shows that it has registered more than 6 million users globally in over 160 countries.
Worldcoin’s WLD token is up more than 4% in the last 24 hours and was trading at $1.47 as of press time, according to CryptoSlate’s data.
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