From Fortune via VentureBeat:
A year after China’s central government proposed a far-sweeping
social credit system to turn citizens’ mundane online activities into a
record of creditworthiness, local governments are beginning to compile
records in the system critics dismiss as Orwellian.
Cities like Hangzhou, home to Alibaba, are beginning to track
citizens’ utility bills, criminal record, online shopping habits, and
public transportation use, among other factors, to generate a social
credit score, the Wall Street Journal reports. The paper said three dozen cities are beginning to compile records.
The news reflects the unease existing in China today.
China’s ruling Communist Party is nervous about the prospects of
social unrest as economic growth slows and millions of eligible workers
are laid off amid reforms to the country’s heavy industry sector. The
social credit score program, which the government hopes will combine
disparate big data on its citizens for the first time, will likely make
it easier to monitor and reward citizens who act suitably while
punishing those who don’t. It’s a program China’s government can’t do
alone, so it is enlisting some of the country’s best-known companies to
help create it.
Alibaba’s Alipay payment system is one of eight companies involved in
the first experiments around China’s social credit scoring system, the WSJ
said. Alipay compiles scores based upon a user’s smartphone brand and
what they buy online, before offering users perks for high scores.
“We want people to be aware of” their online behavior having an
influence on their online credit score “so they know to behave
themselves better,” the WSJ quoted Joe Tsai, Alibaba’s executive vice chairman, as saying.
Tencent is another obvious candidate to join the government’s
efforts. Tencent’s WeChat social network, which has a scrolling
“moments” feed and messenger service similar to Facebook’s offerings,
has 800 million monthly users....MORE
