Images are irreversibly encrypted with a public key from the server such that, in the unlikely event of a compromised Orb, no data would be exposed. The SSD can be used to buffer images for voluntary data custody and image data collection.

Apart from the Jetson, the other major “plugged-in” component is a 250GB M.2 SSD. The mainboard acts as a custom carrier board for the Nvidia Jetson Xavier NX SoM powering the Orb. Since commercially available iris imaging devices did not meet our technology or security needs, we spent years developing our own to enable universal access to the global economy in the most inclusive manner possible. This means that existing technologies with less data richness like FaceID would only be able to accommodate a few million people. Eventually, most systems hit a wall and do not allow anyone new to join. Importantly, false rejections are not constant but increase with scale. The more data rich the biometric marker (e.g., the iris), the fairer and more inclusive the system. This is because the iris has strong fraud resistance and data richness, meaning it can be used to accurately differentiate between billions of unique humans.

Learn more about the inclusivity of biometrics and why Worldcoin uses them here.Īs we explored many different ways to solve sybil resistance and prove unique personhood, our research showed that iris scanning offers the most accurate biometrics with an acceptable user experience that has been successfully tested at scale. It was only after concluding that biometrics are the sole realistic way of achieving our goal that we set out to create the Orb. Instead, our goal was to freely distribute a new digital token to everyone in the world as a way to help them access and participate in the global economy. Building custom hardware is difficult and expensive, and no one wants to do it if they can avoid it. When Worldcoin started, we didn’t intend to develop a physical device, let alone one built for biometric imaging. Why did we need custom hardware, and why does it scan the iris?

Slot machine with orb