What if your right to use public transport or send your children to a prestigious school, or take out a loan depended on Facebook likes? Do you think this is another dystopian film by Hollywood directors? No, this is a new program that the Chinese government is actively developing. It should start working in 2020.
Social credit score is the name of the Chinese project. This is a social trust rating, which will automatically be added based on data from the police, place of work, surveillance cameras, browsing history on the Internet and various companies that people use. The rating, as the tangerines explain, will be tied to the passports of citizens, and today there are 1.379 billion of them.
The social rating project was presented in 2014, and the data collection began already in a year. Interestingly, the Chinese have voluntarily agreed to the processing of personal information through special applications developed by Alibaba and Tencent.
Western democracies are worried because such a system is an instrument of total control that will turn China into a police state.
Do you want to take a bus - like it
“It is necessary to improve the mechanisms for encouraging law-abiding citizens. But it is also necessary to improve the mechanisms for punishing those who have lost confidence, who break the law. This should be so that a person does not dare, she simply cannot lose trust, - explained the introduction of the social rating system, the leader of the PRC Xi Jinping.
The goal is truly noble, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions, given that in China, not everything is in order with freedom. And the database of such a system will surely become a tidbit for hackers. "Cybercriminals can steal or change information," - draws the attention of an analyst at the American cybersecurity company FireEye William Class.
The social credit score also opens up a new class division of society. Citizens who have a high social rating will receive privileges. This may be a lower interest rate on a loan, all kinds of discounts, the opportunity to occupy the best places in hotels and restaurants, and the like. But a low rating is a ban on traveling, using public transport, holding high positions, taking loans, living in prestigious areas. And this is not a complete list of prohibitions.
The government claims that the rating system will affect all citizens without exception. But it's hard to imagine Xi Jinping not being able to ride the bus because his rating is too low for that. Although, the leader of the Chinese Communist Party does not need to ride the bus.
The fate of people who live in remote provinces or are poor also remains unclear - how will they keep track of their rating without the Internet? But what about those who do not want to join the system?
Curved "Black Mirror"
Social credit score will be public. That is, anyone can go in and see how many points you have there. These points will be awarded for everything: what you buy, how long you watch TV, who your friends are, where you go, what you do, how much taxes you pay. It is interesting that not only textual information will be analyzed. The program will process photos, videos and audio files. Also, within the framework of this project, the number of surveillance cameras on the streets will be increased to 620 million (170 million have been installed now).
Today it is a common practice in the world to monitor social media pages of potential employees. Eichars even ask to drop a link to Facebook or Instagram along with the resume. If they do not like your reposts with cats, then you will most likely be refused work. And it doesn't matter what level you are a specialist. The same will happen with the social trust rating.
Are you dreaming of going out on a date? Forget it! Nobody will come with you - you are not trustworthy. How this trustworthiness will be earned is still not clear - the government did not explain the gradation of behavior that will affect the rating.
Yes, this is more and more like the plot of the next series of "Black Mirror", given that such an episode has already happened. But this is reality, which is somewhat similar to the reflection in a crooked mirror. At the moment, the system has already been tested in 30 Chinese cities. The government is pleased with the test results.
Sparrow Killing and the Great Famine
China has already implemented projects that have had disastrous consequences. Take, for example, the destruction of sparrows in the 50s. After this stubborn struggle against "agricultural pests", the Great Chinese Famine began, from which at least 15 million people died. What consequences the Social credit score will have is anyone's guess. However, the Chinese project is already called Orwell's “Big Brother”. It completely destroys the concept of privacy and puts people in a losing position when they are forced to do anything for the rating.
