Zoom and financial companies to add World ID verification — Fortune
World said on October 18 that the Zoom video conferencing service and a number of major financial companies, including Bain Capital and VanEck Funds, will use World ID technology. The tool is designed to confirm that a user is a real and unique person and is intended to help combat bots and deepfakes. One of World’s co-founders is OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.
As Fortune reports, Zoom users who complete World ID verification will receive a blue badge during a video call. It is meant to confirm that a verified real and unique person is in front of the screen. Companies will independently determine which conversations require such verification, including sensitive negotiations.
Verification through iris scanning
The highest level of World ID verification is called Proof of Human. It requires the user to have the World app and a selfie, which is compared with a biometric record created after the iris of the eye is scanned by an Orb device. Financial companies plan to place such devices in their offices so that employees can register.
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World ID also provides for two lower levels of confirmation. Proof of Attributes uses scanned government documents, while Proof of Presence requires a selfie. A World representative stressed that iris scanning is not required for every verification process.
Protection against bots and deepfakes
According to World, Orb creates an encrypted record based on an iris image and does not create a centralized database of people. During confirmation on Zoom or another platform, the app on the phone compares the user’s data with the encrypted record. World Chief Product Officer Tiago Sada also stated that the World ID protocol is open source and available for auditing.
Sada compared the initial distrust of iris scanning to the reaction to the introduction of Touch ID and facial recognition on the iPhone. According to him, the need for such tools may grow due to the spread of bots in e-commerce and online communications.
