Snowden is assuming that Worldcoin is saving hashes of eyeballs. That is not what Worldcoin is doing. Zero Knowledge proofs allow the system to prove that an eyeball exists without actually tying the biometric hash directly to an ID.
From the article:
"We use the open-source Semaphore[19] zero-knowledge proof system to transfer the uniqueness of IrisHashes to the uniqueness of user accounts, without linking them."
Now, of course, one needs to trust that Worldcoin is actually doing what they say they are doing, but that is a different discussion.
Edit: I see now that they are saving this data during field testing. But it looks to me that the long term plan is to use ZK crypto to unlink the hash from the account. Snowden's "hot take" ignores this.
From the article: "We use the open-source Semaphore[19] zero-knowledge proof system to transfer the uniqueness of IrisHashes to the uniqueness of user accounts, without linking them."
Now, of course, one needs to trust that Worldcoin is actually doing what they say they are doing, but that is a different discussion.
Edit: I see now that they are saving this data during field testing. But it looks to me that the long term plan is to use ZK crypto to unlink the hash from the account. Snowden's "hot take" ignores this.
https://semaphore.appliedzkp.org/ https://z.cash/technology/zksnarks/