REUTERS/Annegret HilseMEXICO CITY, Aug 8 (Reuters) - Eager early adopters recently descended upon a Mexico City cafe where their eyes were scanned by a futuristic sphere, part of an ambitious project that ultimately seeks to create a unique digital identification for everyone on the planet. The so-called Worldcoin project is a biometric verification tool led by Sam Altman, the chief executive of Open AI, and the crypto company he co-founded, Tools for Humanity. After the orb scanner captures each user's iris, it converts the image into a unique numerical code called an iris code, which Sadle stressed can only be used to prove the user's identity. "The image on default is deleted and the only piece that is kept is the iris code." "They don't clearly mention the time frame in which the biometric data they collect will be processed and retained," she said, adding that the ownership of the iris code is also unclear.

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Persons: Sam Altman, Jose Incera, Sam Sadle, Sadle, Agneris, Anna Portella, David Alire Garcia, Christian Schmollinger Organizations: REUTERS, MEXICO CITY, Humanity, Thomson Locations: cryptocurrency, Berlin, Germany, Annegret, MEXICO, Mexico City, Mexico, Worldcoin's