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Switch Blades, Stilettos, Auto Open Knives

Switch Blades, Stilettos, Auto Open Knives

The odd reality of life under China’s all-

seeing credit score system

By Charles Rollet

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/china-social-credit

In the UK, credit scores are mostly used to determine whether people can get a credit card or loan. But in China, the government is developing a much broader “social credit” system partly based on people’s routine behaviours with the ultimate goal of determining the “trustworthiness” of the country’s 1.4 billion citizens.

It might sound like a futuristic dystopian nightmare but the system is already a reality. Social credit is preventing people from buying airline and train tickets, stopping social gatherings from happening, and blocking people from going on certain dating websites. Meanwhile, those viewed kindly are rewarded with discounted energy bills and similar perks.

China’s social credit system was launched in 2014 and is supposed to be nationwide by 2020. As well as tracking and rating individuals, it also encompasses businesses and government officials. When it is complete, every Chinese citizen will have a searchable file of amalgamated data from public and private sources tracking their social credit. Currently, the system is still under development and authorities are trying to centralise local databases.

Given the Chinese government’s authoritarian nature, some portray the system as a single, all-knowing Orwellian surveillance machine that will ensure every single citizen’s strict loyalty to the Communist Party. But for now, that’s not quite the case. Rogier Creemers, a researcher in the law and governance of China at Leiden University, has described the social credit setup as an “ecosystem” of fragmented initiatives. The main goal, he says, is not stifling dissent – something the Chinese state already has many tools for at its disposal – but better managing social order while leaving the Party firmly in charge.

Yet social credit isn’t limited to the government and for the most part it has been operated by private firms. Ant Financial, the finance arm of e-commerce giant Alibaba, launched a product called Sesame Credit in 2015. It was China’s first effective credit scoring system but was also much broader, functioning as a social credit scheme and loyalty programme as well.

Along with providing preferential loans, a high Sesame Credit score – which ranges from 350 to 950 – can result in a huge variety of benefits, like no-deposit apartment and bicycle rentals. While the system is undoubtedly popular, the line between private social credit schemes and the government is being increasingly blurred. China’s supreme court, for example, shares a “blacklist” of people who haven’t paid court fines with Sesame Credit, which in turn deducts users’ scores until they sort out they pay up.

As both the private and public components of social credit expand in China, there’s legitimate concern the system will end up creating an “IT-backed authoritarianism” unlike any other. One independent journalist has already been barred from buying plane tickets because of court fees related to his work, for example.

But, for now, it remains grimly captivating to see the benefits and rewards created by such an ambitious and potentially dystopian project. Here are some lesser-known examples of the social credit system’s real-life applications, from hospitals to K-pop.

Big data meets Big Brother as China moves to rate its citizens

China’s hospitals, long notorious for stifling bureaucracy, are currently experimenting with social credit systems. In a bid to reduce wait times by up to 60 per cent, Sesame Credit is giving users with a score above 650 a 1,000-yuan (£117) credit at one Shanghai university hospital, letting them see a doctor without lining up to pay. The scheme is set to expand to hospitals in 10 more Chinese cities. But social credit is also being used to punish some patients and practitioners. Last year, Chinese health authorities announced that people guilty of violence against medical workers – a significant problem in China thanks to poor malpractice policies – would be placed on the country’s national social credit blacklist. Also added to the blacklist were those running illegal plastic surgery outfits.

Punishments in virtual worlds

In 2015, Sesame Credit executive Li Yingun said playing 10 hours of video games a day would get a lower credit score than a responsible parent buying loads of diapers. But playing video games can lower your Sesame Credit score in a much more direct way – if you cheat.

Chinese citizens signing up for the wildly popular multiplayer shooter game Counter Strike Global Offensive must register using both their national ID and Sesame Credit score, according to state media outlet CGTN, and anyone caught using cheating software like ‘Aimbots’ which ensure perfect aim will have their Sesame Credit scores deducted, potentially affecting their real-life ability to get loans. “It’s the worst punishment in history,” Li Haiyi, vice president of Chinese game developer Perfect World, told CGTN.

Chasing K-pop stars

Rabid K-pop fans be warned. After obsessed fans caused serious delays at Beijing’s airport several times by rushing to meet their idols – including one incident where they managed to break into first-class – Chinese authorities passed a regulation that makes it possible to lower the social credit record of anyone found to have disrupted or blocked check-in counters and airport corridors.

Until then, fans were able to get away with their antics thanks to their large numbers and the fact that they bought cheap refundable tickets to enter secure areas, according to Chinese media reports. The new regulation also includes a potential one-year ban from flying and social credit penalties for a host of other bad behaviours, from forging boarding passes to stealing suitcases.

Giving men access to women only dating groups

In China, a high credit score can help you find a date. Zhenai.com, a dating service with 140 million users which is partly-owned by the American parent company behind Tinder, gives users with high Sesame Credit scores better visibility on their website. And in a Tinder-like move, dating giant Baihe.com lets users with high Sesame Credit show off their score to members of the opposite sex as long as they agree to display their scores as well.

Sometimes, though, mixing up social credit and dating goes too far. In late 2016, Alipay launched a new feature on its app called Circles which created women-only groups where only men with Sesame Credit scores over 750 could comment on women’s posts – which they immediately did, mostly by asking for sex. The feature was widely-derided as digital prostitution – one blogger called it “Alipimp” – and it was soon taken down.

Skipping deposits for rentals

Good credit can make city living significantly easier in China. In some cities, people with high Sesame Credit scores can check into hotels, rent umbrellas, and even rent cars without paying a deposit. But it’s not all about the rewards.

Chinese cities piloting government-run social credit systems punish a wide range of activities, potentially causing travel and government service restrictions. Recently the names of 169 people who have been banned from buying travel tickets were published by the government.

In the eastern city of Suzhou, for example, bus fare evasion, posting fake product reviews online, not paying your electric bill, and booking a room in a hotel without showing up all cause deductions in the city’s 200-point social credit system. Possibly to make Suzhou’s program feel a bit less Orwellian, the scheme is named after a flower popularly used in teas and cakes.

Banning social gatherings

In a sign that the government is using the social credit system to deepen its control civil society, social credit is being harnessed to crack down on “illegal social organisations.” The Ministry of Civil Affairs has announced it would take measures to blacklist people involved in such organisations, which were claimed to be largely fraudulent or copycat associations often using vague names in their titles like “international” to swindle people.

Stopping you eating

Since 2015 China’s supreme court has shared a ‘blacklist’ of millions of people who defaulted on their court fines with Sesame Credit. In turn, Sesame Credit lowers these users’ scores and even bars them them from making luxury purchases on the Alibaba-owned online marketplaces TaoBao and Tmall.

The system could go much further in the future. Thanks to the ubiquity of mobile payments in China, frequent debtors could eventually be barred from attempting to “buy breakfast, take a bus and look for jobs,” one Chinese academic told China Daily. While that seems extreme, one woman in 2017 did get plastic surgery to escape debts worth 25 million yuan (about £2.9 million).

Big Brother: China’s chilling dictatorship

moves to introduce scorecards to control

everyone

https://www.news.com.au/technology/online/big-brother-chinas-chilling-dictatorship-moves-to-introduce-scorecards-to-control-everyone/news-story/6c821cbf15378ab0d3eeb3ec3dc98abf

CHINA’S dictatorship will introduce personal scorecards where citizens will be monitored 24/7 and ranked on behaviour.

CHINA’S chilling dictatorship is moving quickly to introduce social scorecards by which all citizens will be monitored 24/7 and ranked on their behaviour.

The Communist Party’s plan is for every one of its 1.4 billion citizens to be at the whim of a dystopian social credit system, and it’s on track to be fully operational by the year 2020.

An active pilot program has already seen millions of people each assigned a score out of 800 and either reap its benefits or suffer its consequences — depending on which end of the scale they sit.

Under the social credit scheme, points are lost and gained based on readings from a sophisticated network of 200 million surveillance cameras — a figure set to triple in 18 months.

The program has been enabled by rapid advances in facial recognition, body scanning and geo-tracking.

China’s whopping population of 1.4 billion will be monitored 24/7 if the government’s bold plan to introduce “Social Credit” by 2020 is successful. Picture: ABC’s Foreign Correspondent.Source:ABC

The data is combined with information collected from individuals’ government records — including medical and educational — along with their financial and internet browsing histories. Overall scores can go up and down in “real time” dependant on the person’s behaviour but they can also be affected by people they associate with.

“If your best friend or your dad says something negative about the government, you’ll lose points too,” the ABC reports.

The mandatory “social credit” system was first announced in 2014 in a bid to reinforce the notion that “keeping trust is glorious and breaking trust is disgraceful,” according to a government document.

In a Foreign Correspondent episode, to air on the ABC tonight, financial credit system Alipay, Tianjin general manager Jie Cong, summarised the system in black and white.

“If people keep their promises they can go anywhere in the world,” he said. “If people break their promises they won’t be able to move an inch!”

MODEL CITIZENS

Under the system, those deemed to be “top citizens” are rewarded bonus points.

The benefits of being ranked on the higher end of the scale include waived deposits on hotels and rental cars, VIP treatment at airports, discounted loans, priority job applications and fast-tracking to the most prestigious universities.

Dandan, a young mother and marketing professional, is proud of her high score. If she keeps it up her infant son will be more likely to get into a top school.

“China likes to experiment in this creative way … I think people in every country want a stable and safe society,” she said.

“We need a social credit system. We hope we can help each other, love each other and help everyone to become prosperous.”

Switch Blades, Stilettos, Auto Open Knives

Model citizen Dandan Fan with civil servant husband Xiaojing Zhang and son Ruibao. Picture: Brant Cumming.Source:ABC

BOTTOM OF THE SCALE

But it doesn’t take much to end up on the wrong side of the scale with an estimated 10 million people are already paying the price of a low rating.

Jaywalking, late payments on bills or taxes, buying too much alcohol or speaking out against the government, each cost citizens points.

Other mooted punishable offences include spending too long playing video games, wasting money on frivolous purchases and posting on social media, according to Business Insider.

Penalties range from losing the right to travel by plane or train, social media account suspensions and being barred from government jobs.

Chinese journalist Liu Hu is one of millions who have already amassed a low social credit rating. Liu Hu was arrested, jailed and fined after he exposed official corruption.

“The government regards me as an enemy,” Liu Hu told the ABC.

Journalist Liu Hu was black-listed on Social Credit after exposing corruption. Picture: Brant Cumming.Source:ABC

He is now banned from travelling by plane or fast train. His social media accounts with millions of followers have been suspended. He struggles to find work.

“This kind of social control is against the tide of the world. The Chinese people’s eyes are blinded and their ears are blocked. They know little about the world and are living in an illusion.” Liu Hu said.

Seventeen people who refused to carry out military service were last year barred from enrolling in higher education, applying for high school, or continuing their studies, Beijing News reported.

Uighur poet and filmmaker, Tahir Hamut, who fled to the US, told the ABC that China’s surveillance system “suddenly ramped up after the end of 2016”.

“Since then, advanced surveillance technology which we’ve never seen, never experienced, never heard of, started appearing,” he said.

Op-Ed: Chinese ‘Social Credit’, or how AI can rule your life right now