It seems unnatural to us westerners that we should be monitored much of the time or exist within a society where we are inspected and judged via state surveillance.
We like to think of ourselves as free spirits able to express ourselves in our daily lives in whatever way we like, social, anti-social, perhaps even criminal.
Yet we at the same time can’t help but see many anarchic, unstable and detrimental aspects to a western way of life emphasizing freedom, individuality and personal choice, no matter the wider cost to society as a whole.
We are supposed to have access to democracy yet we see how little power to change things we have in reality. A tiny elite, no matter their politics, make most decisions and only expect our tick in a box once every four years or so.
Regime change wars have been waged despite our best efforts to convey our disapproval. Our airports are used to facilitate U.S. extradition of people to black sites where they are tortured. We have no say in any of this.
Our western societies support attacks on weaker nations, destroying the fabric of their systems, bringing their populations to abject misery for generations to come. Our elites do this quite outside our supposed democratic system and our supposed rights within it.
How satisfied are we that our western societies are moving toward an ever more positive future? How confident are we that we can unify, agree and work toward societies in harmony, at peace with themselves and be able to exemplify a sustainable, stable, satisfying, rewarding and peaceful existence for generations to come?
If you are in any doubt at all about any of the positives above coming to pass you may be interested to hear of the Chinese decision to introduce a system of social credits whereby the acts of each citizen are rewarded or punished by the awarding or detracting of credits.
‘As recently as 2011, only 1 in 3 Chinese people had a bank account. The nation’s rapid rise from collectivized penury to the world’s No. 2 economy meant it never had the chance to develop Western-style credit histories. That meant people could default on loans, or sell shoddy or counterfeit goods, with few repercussions. Society was dogged by a question: Whom can you trust?’
The Chinese Communist Party is determined to ensure that the citizens of China are fully engaged in creating a positive future for their country based on proven trust and identifying those who are less trustworthy. This refers to private citizens, businesses and government officials.
The CCP is unwilling to risk assessments of trustworthiness merely on the basis of hope or simple faith in human nature. They wish to deploy a predictive method that doesn’t simply rely on many millions of people all doing 'the right thing’ in the hope and trust that things will somehow come out right in the end. They want to be able to predictably guide Chinese society in the direction they deem to be positive where integrity is encouraged and acts that positively enhance China are rewarded while attempting to reduce or eliminate a range of negative aspects that can corrode trust.
It may well seem to you like something out of George Orwell’s '1984'. Using face recognition technology and the creation of a nationwide, electronic social credit system the CCP are intent on using a form of behaviorism to ensure good acts are rewarded, bad acts are punished and that the state will be able to monitor and guide the Chinese people toward what they conceive to be a better, more honest, satisfying, harmonious and more trustworthy life for all.
However, what is proposed is not a single integrated system run by the government. The majority of the social credit systems are non-governmental initiatives and are in use across numerous areas of Chinese life with various regions adopting diverse options. In theory, once all are stably in place they could be integrated into one overarching system if the technology exists to encompass this task and if formats of data collection can be formalized, however this is an incredibly complex task considering the plethora of systems that exist.
Those acts considered good garner electronic credits which can then be spent on pleasurable activities, a simple example might be a boat cruise. If you have sufficient credits on your card you can pay for the trip with the credit payment automatically deducted. You build your credits through certain positive acts and thus expand your possibilities for pleasure or enhanced services. Engage in activities considered detrimental to yourself or society and credits are deducted and thus your life chances are lowered.
The Chinese social credit systems promote the establishment of a big data record encompassing citizens, businesses and government. It seeks to track and evaluate standards of trustworthiness and merit and is designed to construct multiple platforms for monitoring behavior across China in real-time.
What sort of example activities are considered positive social activities deserving of an increase in social credits?
living debt free
donating blood
donating to charity
volunteering for community services
Benefits:
easier time getting bank loans
free medical checkups
discounts on heating
What sort of example activities are considered anti-social activities deserving of a reduction in social credits?
defaulting on court fines
traffic violations
selling faulty products
defaulting on loan payments
smoking in non-smoking zones
posting false news stories online
China’s State Council first introduced the plan in June 2014. The council announced the system would “allow the trustworthy to roam everywhere under heaven while making it hard for the discredited to take a single step.”
Big data is key to the entire enterprise. Artificial Intelligence and other advanced technologies will be key to the system when it finally goes nationwide.
Chinese businesses will also be assessed regarding trustworthiness and integrity in a similar way.
Input data for businesses:
Whether business taxes are paid on on time
Whether a business maintains necessary licenses
Whether a business fulfills environmental-protection requirements
Whether a business meets product quality standards
Whether a business meets requirements specific to their industry
Four Areas of Sincerity Building
‘There are four proposed important areas that are needed to develop social integrity and a social credit system: government affairs, commerce, social service domains, and the judicial system. With regard to government affairs, the proposal encourages government branches to adopt various types of social credit products in its work. Civil servant credit dossiers were proposed to record annual reviews and acts such as violating laws and regulations.
With regard to commerce, a large number of industries are mentioned in the outline. For example, for manufacturing industries, a product quality credit system was proposed, to be connected with the current 12365 product quality complaint hotline platform. For trading and service businesses, it is proposed to develop a company credit system. For the financial industry, more individual and institutional financial activities are proposed to be recorded. For taxation, more information on taxpayers, including trading and asset ownership, need to be collected and verified. Similar plans were mentioned for other business sectors such as construction, government procurement, tendering and bidding, traffic and transportation, e-commerce, statistics, exhibiting and advertising, etc.
With regard to honesty and integrity building in the social service domains, healthcare, social security, labor and employment, education and academic research, culture sports and tourism, intellectual property, environmental protection and energy saving, non-government organizations, and internet applications and services are mentioned as the areas where severe problems in integrity exists and different types of database or blacklist systems will be set up. In particular, a job-related integrity record system will be constructed for people such as public servants, enterprises’ legal representatives, lawyers, accounting employees, registered accountants, statist employees, registered tax advisors, auditors, evaluators, insurance brokers, medical personnel, teachers, scientific research personnel, patent service employees, project managers, news and media employees, and tourist guides, etc.
With regard to judicial credibility, the court system, prosecutorial system, public security system, and judicial and administrative system are required to further move forward with information openness so as to safeguard the public’s right to know and to carry out “sunshine law enforcement” so that the public will place more trust in these institutions.
Purposes and Motivations Behind the System
A brief look at the two government documents suggests that the social credit system is a gigantic mixture of tools that aim to serve multiple purposes: to shape citizens’ and institutional behavior, to push forward government transparency, and subsequently to reduce transaction costs incurred by a low-trust society. At the core of the plan lies the key of reputation building or sincerity development. “Xin”, credit or reputation or trust, is a quintessential concept in Confucius thought. But in contemporary China, dishonest behaviors trying to take advantage of loopholes in laws and regulations are rampant at different levels of society. The social credit plan could be seen as a tool introduced by the party to cure the social ills of low trust with a good intention but with potentially unpredictable results. Observers who see this as a surveillance plan tend to focus their attention on the technical details of data collection, while losing sight of its overall purpose (of course, the extent and method of data collection is controversial and disputable). As a matter of fact, only one tiny paragraph in the long document touches upon credit system development regulating internet use. After all, the party has already developed a very complicated internet censorship system employing technical, legal, and administrative tools. Therefore, the primary motivation behind creating a social credit system seems to be more economical and social than political.’
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