Worldcoin

Building the world’s largest identity and financial network to serve as a public utility, giving ownership to everyone. Currently in beta.

Layers of Digital Indentity

In a nutshell, proof of personhood (PoP) is a mechanism that establishes an individual’s humanness and uniqueness.

It can be thought of as the first and most fundamental building block in establishing digital identity.

1/ A brief look inside the Orb

2/ The Orb is a custom biometric imaging device developed by tfh technology

for the Worldcoin project. It uses iris biometrics to verify a person's humanness & uniqueness in a way that's secure & privacy-preserving.

3/ Underneath the shell, the Orb consists of 2 hemispheres separated by a mainboard w/ a powerful computing unit to enable local processing for max. privacy. The front half is dedicated to the sealed optical system. The back half is dedicated to the cooling system & speakers.

4/ The Orb's main imaging system consists of a telephoto lens & 2D gimbal mirror system, a global shutter camera sensor & an optical filter. The movable mirror increases the field of view by >2 orders of magnitude, & image capturing is controlled by several neural networks.

5/ The custom telephoto lens has coated glass to optimize image capture in the near infrared spectrum. An integrated liquid lens allows for millisecond autofocus, controlled by a neural network to optimize focus. The shutter sensor is synced w/ pulsed illumination to avoid blur.

6/ The Orb’s custom battery is made of Li-Ion 18650 cells (the same cells used in many electric cars). With close to 100Wh, the capacity is optimized for battery lifetime while complying with transportation regulations. A USB-C connector makes recharging convenient.

7.1/ The front of the mainboard holds capacitors to power the pulsed, near infrared illumination (certified eye safe). There are also drivers to power the deformation of the liquid lens in the optical system. A microcontroller controls precise timing of the peripherals.

7.2/ An encrypted M.2 SSD can be used to store images for opt-in data custody & image data collection. Those images are secured by a 2nd layer of irreversible encryption via the public key from a server such that, if an Orb is compromised (unlikely), no data would be exposed.

7.3/ The contribution of data is optional and data deletion can be requested at any time through the app. A SIM card slot enables optional LTE connectivity.

8.1/ The back of the mainboard holds connectors for active elements of the optical system. Additionally, a GPS module enables precise location of Orbs to prevent fraud. A wifi module enables the Orb to upload iris codes to make sure every person can only sign up once.

8.2/ Finally, the mainboard hosts a Nvidia Jetson Xavier NX which runs multiple neural networks in real time to optimize image capture, perform local anti-spoof detection & calculate the iris code locally to maximize privacy.

9/ The front PCB powers multispectral illumination & fraud sensors. Bright illumination (certified eye safe) is needed for high quality image capture. Fraud prevention algorithms based on multispectral sensors are designed to prevent spoofing & run locally for max. privacy.

The Orb in real life

App interface

Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, has landed $115M in new funds for his crypto project, Worldcoin.

Real world pictures:

World ID supports multiple types of personhood verifications - from the start, it includes phone number verification for all smartphone users & Orb biometric verification for ultimate precision. World ID serves as a digital passport

World App is the first app built for Worldcoin. It leverages the World ID protocol to enable seamless, privacy-preserving access to websites, mobile apps and more.