Prosecutors in São Paulo state have filed a public civil lawsuit against Tools for Humanity Corporation and Amazon AWS Serviços Brasil, accusing the two companies of illegally collecting iris biometric data from consumers in São Paulo.
The São Paulo Public Prosecutor’s Office is seeking at least R$240 million in collective moral damages, about $47 million, and wants the court to permanently bar the defendants from obtaining iris data in exchange for financial compensation.
Prosecutor seeks injunction and data preservation
Patrícia Leitão, a prosecutor with the 4th Consumer Protection Prosecutor’s Office handling the case, asked the court for emergency relief. She wants immediate preservation of all materials, records, and metadata related to the processing of the iris data, along with contracts and technical reports covering data storage.
She also asked the court to determine which company inside the Amazon group was actually responsible for hosting the information. Before any court-appointed forensic review is completed, she argues, the defendants should be stopped from collecting any new iris data in exchange for money or any other benefit.
More than 400,000 people allegedly traded iris scans for cash
According to the investigation, more than 400,000 Brazilians exchanged their iris scans for payments ranging from R$300 to R$700.
Collection points were concentrated in outlying districts and high-traffic areas, especially around subway stations and São Paulo’s Poupatempo citizen service centers. Prosecutors said the effort particularly targeted socially and economically vulnerable groups.
The Public Prosecutor’s Office also said consumers were not clearly informed before agreeing to the scans. In its statement, prosecutors said: "Consumers did not receive clear explanations about the project’s economic purpose, the risks related to biometric data processing, the transfer of data abroad, and the possibility that this information could be stored on Amazon Web Services servers."
Brazil’s data authority had already moved against the practice
Brazil’s National Data Protection Authority, or ANPD, had already ruled on Jan. 24, 2025 that Tools for Humanity must stop offering cryptocurrency or any other financial compensation for Brazilians’ iris data starting the following day.
At the time, ANPD said compensation in cryptocurrency could undermine the validity of consent involving sensitive biometric data. The authority said it was especially concerned that financial incentives could distort the judgment of vulnerable groups, while iris data, once provided, cannot be deleted and is irreversible.
Tools for Humanity later sought a review, but ANPD rejected that request. If collection resumes, the company faces a daily fine of R$50,000.
MPSP said that despite the order, the company kept the practice going through "benefits" inside the World App, effectively continuing to pay for iris collection under a different label.
161-page city council report cited in the lawsuit
Another source behind the case was a final investigative report from São Paulo’s city council "Iris Investigation Committee," which examined how the World ID project operated in the city.
The committee was formed in May 2025 and, after nearly a year of work, produced a 161-page report. On April 7, 2026, all seven committee members approved it unanimously. The report said Tools for Humanity’s operating model presented "high legal, social, and technical risks" and found serious violations of Brazil’s legal order in three areas: personal data protection, consumer protection, and financial system oversight.
The report was also sent to the public defender’s office and ANPD. It has now become part of the basis for the prosecutors’ lawsuit.
World Network model faces broader regulatory pressure
Tools for Humanity was co-founded by OpenAI Chief Executive Sam Altman. Its Worldcoin project, now renamed World Network, uses the Orb, a spherical scanning device, to collect iris data and issue World ID digital identity credentials and WLD tokens as part of a system built to verify that a user is human.
That model has been facing growing pressure from regulators. The source article said six jurisdictions, including Germany, South Korea, Hong Kong, and Thailand, have taken action to block Orb iris scanning. It also said Tools for Humanity reportedly carried out layoffs in June and had been accused of possible bribery involving Thai officials and of manipulating the price of WLD. The token was described as being down 95% from its all-time high.