World, Sam Altman’s “proof of humanity,” is coming to Zoom and Tinder

After scanning a user’s iris, this system can certify that the person is not a bot or a synthetic agent.

World (formerly Worldcoin), a company co-founded by Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, announced on April 17, 2026, that an update to its “proof of humanity” tool will soon be integrated into services such as Zoom and Tinder.

The World ID process verifies that a user is not a bot or a synthetic agent. It relies on the Orb, a device that scans the iris and converts it into an anonymous cryptographic fingerprint.

The user then receives an identifier, stored on their smartphone, which allows them to authenticate on third-party platforms. In an initial test conducted in Japan, World ID users were able to display a “verified human” badge on Tinder. An expansion of this experiment is planned in the United States.

The company has also partnered with several platforms, including DocuSign, Shopify, Okta, Amazon Web Services, and Vercel, which may soon adopt its services.

World has faced sanctions or administrative bans in several countries for failing to comply with ethical standards and consent requirements related to biometric data collection, including Kenya, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Thailand, and Indonesia.

The media outlet TFTC has taken an ironic view of Sam Altman’s role, noting that with OpenAI, he helped create the problem of non-human identities that World ID now claims to solve: “He caused the flood. Now he’s selling the ark.”