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A university student who went for Worldcoin scanning has accused the firm of duping him into the process.

Appearing before the joint Ad hoc Committee of Inquiry into Worldcoin, Miruoba Marube, a student at Kenyatta University, told legislators that he has since developed eye complications.

He also claimed that despite the recruiters promising them over Ksh7,000 worth of cryptocurrency, he only received an equivalent of Ksh2,000.

“They also lied to me that they would pay me Ksh7,000 but only sent me an equivalent of Ksh2,000, after which, I developed eye complications and I have had to get prescription spectacles,” Marube claimed.

The registration, according to the students, started as early as 2021, with most of those recruited being university students.

“Most of us agreed to have our eyes scanned because of the financial motivation, and the fact that they were stationed within our learning institutions and we did not have to do much to get the promised grant, although it was in cryptocurrency,” Bernard Ochieng’, a student at the Technical University of Kenya said.

Ochieng’ told the legislators that the recruiting agent told them they would earn Kssh7,000 simply after scanning their eyes and downloading an app.

According to Bruce Bogita, a student at the Kenya School of Law, those who underwent the registration at the inception period in 2021 were never guided on how to convert the money from cryptocurrency to Kenyan shillings.

“They never told us where they were taking our data to, they only said the scanning was meant to confirm that we are human and to show you are the sole owner of the application Worldcoin so others could not access it,” Bogita said.

They three told the Committee that they have since faced social stigma based on social media reactions to the reported scans, although two of them submitted that they would not want the Data harvesting by Worldcoin continue since they have already suffered the consequences, and there is no clarity on what their data is being used for by the foreigners.

The Committee is scheduled to meet with the directors of Worldcoin on Wednesday, September 5, 2023.