Imagine getting on a plane and seeing someone with an extremely rude attitude take your place and refuse to leave. Even when flight attendants ask, they don’t budge. You are angry and wish that this person will be banned from flying for a while because of your behavior. In fact, that has not happened anywhere in the world, except China.
Chengxin Chunyun is an application created by several Chinese government agencies that allows users to take photos of unruly passengers and aircraft and upload photos to the platform with a description of their violations. , including jostling when queuing, smoking, or fighting. Theoretically, when this action is verified to be true, they may be banned from boarding a train or airplane in the future.
A social credit scoring application of China.
At the moment, Chengxin Chunyun doesn’t seem to be working anymore, but this is just one of many applications in an effort to expand and strengthen the role of the Chinese government’s social trust system.
China’s credit system is made up of many different systems with the goal of better social control. According to Kendra Schaefer, director of technical research at a Chinese policy analysis company, the system is simply a database that gathers information on citizens and companies. nationwide. Different systems will operate differently but with the same goal of rewarding “the good” and punishing “the bad” by scoring.
Many individuals on the blacklist have been disregarded, especially those who disobeyed a court order. One of the most common penalties for them is banning high-speed trains, airplanes or using high-end services. There are currently about 13 million people on the blacklist of Chinese courts.
Local governments in many places are researching to come up with technological tools that allow their citizens to detect and report violators. If you don’t know what your business partner is, a Chinese person can use one of a series of “blacklist” court search lists of “laolai” who don’t follow orders. of court and repayment. The most prominent of these is Laolai Checker, the software that displays “laolai” and allows real-time reporting.
A court in eastern China even encouraged people to accuse people of debt by sending image ads to friends and family of violators on WeChat. A mini-program on WeChat also provides users with a map of the locations of “laolai” within a radius of 500 meters. This seems to be a rude way to force people to pay court-appointed debt, but researchers say it appears to be performing quite well.
The Chinese social credit system is made up of many different systems.
China has also devised dozens of different types of blacklists but only a handful of applications allow users to report bad behavior. These include lists that embarrass shame pedestrians and low-minded travelers through face recognition, punish subway eaters and spread false online content.
Many cities in China are piloting their own social credit scoring applications including data collected by local governments and the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC). In one city, scores can range from 0 to 200 but in another city, that number could be 1,000.
High scores can offer privileges like getting a passport faster, borrowing books from the library without a deposit, or getting discounted tickets on public transport.
In Fuzhou, a city in Southeast China, volunteering can earn 10 points while being a Party member will get 50 points. When the national award is reached, the score will be 80, according to Trivium data.
On the other hand, a minor traffic violation may result in a 30-point reduction, an employer who does not pay an employee will receive a 100-point deduction, and if he disobeys a court order, the credit score will be zero and that person will get the name. in the blacklist. Another problem is that many people are concerned about privacy breaches from the government collecting too much information, especially face detection.
“In the future, social credit scoring applications may ‘die’,” said one expert. “People will realize that these scores are no longer useful but the huge data set is still saved. Data centers at the city and national levels are doing things that they could not do before. Over time, the data set will be completed and diversified. maybe easier or … more difficult “.