![]() While it isn’t yet clear what data will be considered, commentators are already speculating that the scope of the system will be alarmingly wide. The massive e-commerce conglomerate claims its app is only tracking users’ financial and credit behavior, but promises to offer a “holistic rating of character.” It is not hard to imagine many Chinese boasting soon about their official scores. Already, 100,000 Chinese citizens have posted on social media about high scores on a “Sesame Credit” app operated by Alibaba, in a private-sector precursor to the proposed government system. In its comprehensive 2014 planning outline, the CCP explains a goal of “keep trust and constraints against breaking trust.” While the system is voluntary for now, it will be mandatory by 2020. The new social credit system under development will consolidate reams of records from private companies and government bureaucracies into a single “citizen score” for each Chinese citizen. While the Chinese government has long scrutinized individual citizens for evidence of disloyalty to the regime, only now is it beginning to develop comprehensive, constantly updated, and granular records on each citizen’s political persuasions, comments, associations, and even consumer habits. Now, the Communist Party of China is finally building the extensive, multilevel data-gathering system it has dreamed of for decades. According to Freedom House, China’s level of internet freedom is already the worst on the planet. This ambitious project has so far been mostly confined to a content-filtering Great Firewall, which prohibits foreign internet sites including Google, Facebook, and The New York Times. Justifying controls in the name of national security and social stability, China originally planned to develop what it called a “Golden Shield” surveillance system allowing easy access to local, national, and regional records on each citizen. While the expanding Orwellian eye may improve “public safety,” it poses a chilling new threat to civil liberties in a country that already has one of the most oppressive and controlling governments in the world.Ĭhina’s evolving algorithmic surveillance system will rely on the security organs of the communist party-state to filter, collect, and analyze staggering volumes of data flowing across the internet. A vast accompanying network of surveillance cameras will constantly monitor citizens’ movements, purportedly to reduce crime and terrorism. Harnessing advances in artificial intelligence and data mining and storage to construct detailed profiles on all citizens, China’s communist party-state is developing a “citizen score” to incentivize “good” behavior. The country is racing to become the first to implement a pervasive system of algorithmic surveillance. This society may seem dystopian, but it isn’t farfetched: It may be China in a few years. It won’t be long before the police show up at your door. If you commit a crime-or simply jaywalk-facial recognition algorithms will match video footage of your face to your photo in a national ID database. ![]() When you step outside your door, your actions in the physical world are also swept into the dragnet: The government gathers an enormous collection of information through the video cameras placed on your street and all over your city. ![]() To calculate the score, private companies working with your government constantly trawl through vast amounts of your social media and online shopping data. If you make political posts online without a permit, or question or contradict the government’s official narrative on current events, however, your score decreases. A high score allows you access to faster internet service or a fast-tracked visa to Europe. ![]() Your “citizen score” follows you wherever you go. Imagine a society in which you are rated by the government on your trustworthiness. ![]()
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