The Chief Executive Officer of Tools for Humanity, a foreign Company registered in Germany and founder of Worldcoin that is at the centre of the controversial data mining activities in the country appeared before the National Assembly’s joint Ad-Hoc Committee to clarify their biometric data collection activities in question.

Mr. Alex Blania, accompanied by a team of officers from Tools of Humanity from the US led by his Chief Legal Officer Thomas Scott and a team of local lawyers informed this Committee that before commencement of the data mining activities they engaged the office of the data Commissioner where they they registered 2 entities that oparated with local partners registered as business entities. Later tools for Humanity transitioned to Worldcoin Foundation that applied to register as a data controller.

Mr. Alex went ahead to further inform the Committee that Kenya was identified as one of the countries fit for the project since it’s one of the countries in Africa leading in technology consumption. He added that the level of talent and political stability in Kenya encouraged them to start the project alongside Chile and Senegal.

“We do not seek to harvest data and commercialise it, we are building data for privacy by design to create a process that confirms living humans and their uniqueness. It is one to one match to identify people easily through the face and the iris, this human features are unique like DNA, the code developed on the iris identifies only specific individuals”, he added.

The Committee went ahead to question the team on the safety of Kenyans and the issues of consent especially for minors. In his response, the CEO, Mr. Alex told the Committee that there is a biometric consent form for individuals registering and it’s a requirement that all those registering must be 18 years and above.

They gave an example of India and International Airports around the globe using the same program to identify people.

In Kenya, 650,000 people downloaded the Worldcoin Application, 301,000 Kenyans were registered and verified and 194,000 have claimed Worldcoin tokens. However, because of the Government’s order to stop their activities in the country, they say they have not completed the process of issuing the World Identification to all those who participated.

On the issue of eye health concerns as reported by some Kenyans, Mr. Alex said, they have not received any complaints from any member(s) of the public, Ministry of Health or any other relevant Authorities.

From the Conversation, it was clear Tools for Humanity and Worldcoin violated the data Protection Act leading to cancellation of their activities.