DIGITALIZATION OF TERRITORY AND URBAN EXTRACTIVISM: Worldcoin's operations in São Paulo's peripheries

Abstract

This paper critically examines Worldcoin’s operations in São Paulo through the lens of urban extractivism. The main objective is to analyze how iris biometric data collection, presented as technological innovation and financial inclusion, operates in contexts marked by vulnerability and informality. The study adopts a theoretical-conceptual approach in Urban Geography, drawing on Milton Santos, Mónica Arroyo, Gilberto Cunha Franca, Verónica Gago and Sandro Mezzadra, Sérgio Amadeu da Silveira, and Shoshana Zuboff. Methodologically, it combines an interdisciplinary literature review, document analysis of news reports and institutional statements, and exploratory cartography with three maps: location of hubs, overlap with the Social Vulnerability Index (IVS/IPEA), and relation to the subway and train network. Findings show that although some devices were installed in popular areas, Worldcoin’s territorial strategy was strongly associated with high-mobility sites, such as subway and train stations, where long queues formed in exchange for cryptocurrency payments. Recent controversies, including the company’s suspension by Brazil’s National Data Protection Authority (ANPD), highlight that vulnerability does not vanish but intertwines with urban infrastructures as an operational condition of algorithmic extraction. The paper concludes that Worldcoin exemplifies a regime of digital dispossession and data colonialism, where bodies and territories are functionalized as financial assets within platform capitalism.