Oops, Worldcoin Lost Your Eyeballs

Welcome to the rollout of Worldcoin, an AI-meets-crypto project from OpenAI founder Sam Altman that has stirred endless controversy. The startup uses orbs to scan people’s eyes in exchange for a digital ID and possibly some cryptocurrency, depending on what country they live in. … But privacy experts are concerned about the Worldcoin’s collection of biometric data and how, exactly, the project will keep and protect that data going forward. —Time

To our valued Worldcoin community:

Well, it happened. We lost your eyeballs.

As you’ve probably heard by now, an international hacker group recently breached Worldcoin’s servers and was able to access much of our user data, including eyeball scans. First and foremost, we offer our sincerest apologies to you, our users. When you heard the words “eyeball-I.D. startup that also does crypto,” you thought, That’s a group I can trust, and we failed to live up to that trust.

We hope you understand how seriously we are taking this situation. We’re working around the clock, in close consultation with law enforcement, to understand what the hackers may be planning to do with your eyeballs. You might be wondering, What kind of weirdo would even want my eyeballs? But keep in mind that we also want your eyeballs, so that is offensive to us.

Our main concern, as always, is with your safety and privacy. A data breach involving people’s eyeballs is unprecedented, with uncertain ramifications. So as we gather more information, please exercise heightened caution, as you may experience the following:

–Scammers contacting you for money in exchange for giving you your eyeballs back.

–Advertisements that address you by name (yes, like in “Minority Report,” we knew you were going to say that).

–A.I.-powered lifelike duplicates of you, with your eyeballs, walking around on the street.

–The odd sensation that someone is looking at you, but you’re alone.

–The Duplicate You, with your eyeballs, trying to sleep with your wife.

–Your eyeballs being used by someone else in the Clear line at the airport.

–Your wife leaving you for the Duplicate You, but not because she thinks it’s the real you; she just likes it better.

We know this may be alarming to you and we apologize for any inconvenience this situation may cause. Please be aware that, contrary to Internet rumors, the hackers did not steal your actual eyeballs, which, if you are reading this, are still in your face.

Additionally, according to our cybersecurity experts, the hackers were not able to access all the eyeballs. To check whether your eyeballs were compromised in the security breach, we have set up the Web site worldcoinwherearemyeyeballs.com. Rest assured that if your eyeballs were not stolen, that doesn’t mean that they’re not nice eyeballs.

Thank you for your understanding as we do everything we can to prevent a breach like this from happening again. As difficult as this situation is, we will not waver from our mission of “scanning everyone’s eyeballs for reasons we’ll figure out later.” And we hope you’ll come along with us, because we are dedicated to earning back your trust.

They also took all the crypto.

Sincerely,

Worldcoin Board of Directors ♦