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All images and data mined by American firm Worldcoin were automatically deleted after registration, its directors told MPs yesterday.

Tool for Humanity, a firm mandated to conduct business for Worldcoin in Kenya Chief Executive Steve Blania told the lawmakers that the scanning of iris was necessary as it was the best way to distinguish individuals.

It also emerged that the Data Protection Commissioner Immaculate Kasait had revoked the licence to Worldcoin.

Appearing before the Ad Hoc Committee of the National Assembly probing the firm’s operations in the country, Blania revealed that part of the data collected was stored in the blockchains in South Africa and Italy.

“We do not seek to harvest data and monetise it. The agenda is to protect privacy. Our goal is not to create an environment that identifies the user,” he told the committee.

“Images of a person’s iris are immediately deleted from the orb device. It is the nature of the AI models that we need data to train the model to distinguish people,” said company lawyer Thomas Scott.

The information contradicts Communication Authority Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Ezra Chiloba who had told the committee that the data was stored in Amazon, USA. The Ad Hoc committee is investigating whether there were any unlawful operations of the company which has been accused of mining data from Kenyans.