GREAT LEAP FORWARD?
China plans to rate every one of its 1.3 billion citizens in a giant database,
“The Chinese government already has a back door into everything on your phone and on the Internet, so this isn’t exactly a new way to control people’s lives.” HU JIA POLITICAL ACTIVIST
BEIJING — Internet users in the U.S. voiced outrage this fall over the imminent launch of a Yelp-style app intended to let anyone post public reviews of their friends, acquaintances and yes, enemies — with no opt-out option.
The outbursts prompted the creators of the app, Peeple, to reconsider. But in China, government authorities are hard at work devising their own e-database to rate each and every one of the nation’s 1.3 billion citizens by 2020 using metrics including whether they pay their bills on time, plagiarize school work, break traffic laws or adhere to birth control regulations. And there’s no opt-out option.
Proponents of the so-called Social Credit System say it will help China overcome a multitude of societal ills for which it has gained international ignominy — from food and drug safety scandals to flagrant corruption, counterfeiting, tax evasion, academic cheating and even public defecation.
The goals for the project are nothing if not lofty: “carrying forward sincerity and traditional virtues,” “encouraging trust,” “raising the overall competitiveness of the country,” and last but not least, “stimulating . . . the progress of civilization,” according to a lengthy brief published by China’s State Council, or cabinet.
But some fear that marrying credit scores with school, employment, criminal and other records will create the ultimate Orwellian instrument of social control in a one-party state that in recent years has shown less and less tolerance for critical voices.
“The Chinese government already has a back door into everything on your phone and on the Internet, so this isn’t exactly a new way to control people’s lives,” said Hu Jia, a well-known political activist who has been imprisoned and held under house arrest for his activism around issues including the Tiananmen Square massacre, AIDS and environmental protection.
“What’s new is that Chinese authorities can systematically analyze all this data ... and China doesn’t have an Edward Snowden to focus the public’s attention on these privacy issues,” Hu said.
Increased use of big data by central authorities, drawing on information from banks, mobile phone companies and e-commerce firms such as Alibaba, could in theory improve governance by serving as a check on corrupt officials who have long been able to do as they please.
Between individuals, sharing scores may help give strangers confidence to do business — or even go on a date. And in some ways, Chinese authorities’ desire to incentivize moral or healthy behaviours through data mining may be no different, some observers note, than U.S. insurance companies giving discounts to customers who upload digital proof from their Fitbits that they exercise regularly.
“A lot of data capture is there to overcome horrible problems of bad government — ranging from pollution and food security to corruption in education and badly delivered health care,” said Rogier Creemers, a scholar of China and technology at the University of Oxford. While acknowledging that there could be rampant opportunities for the state to abuse such data, he added, “the idea that the Communist Party wants to legitimize its rule by pleasing the people is (also) basic politics.”
Hu, however, says the increasing ability of authorities to tap technology to know more and more details about citizens is increasingly giving life in China a Truman Show- like quality.
“My friends and I joke that we are no longer in a police state,” Hu said, “but a police empire.”
Secret files already exist Although many details remain unclear, the Social Credit System will essentially be a 21st-century update of China’s longstanding secret personnel file system.
For decades, the government kept these files, called dang’an, on hundreds of millions of urban residents, logging their performance at school and work, but also at times recording information that might raise questions about their political leanings, such as whether they had “foreign friends” or read certain books. Cadres could consult these files when hiring new workers and granting benefits, but no one was supposed to see his or her own file, which was typically housed in one’s state-assigned work unit.
With the rise of private enterprises and increasing mobility, the file system’s central role in the Communist Party’s web of social control has broken down over the last quarter-century. Many people who have migrated to cities like Beijing say their files remained in their hometowns; some from rural areas say they never had one to begin with.
For urban residents registering for social security benefits, or seeking to have a baby under China’s strict family-planning regulations, the dang’an remains a fact of life.
Perhaps that’s why the idea of the state keeping secret files on them — on paper or in a computerized system — doesn’t provoke overwhelming concern.
Wang Xiao,19, recently was at a file management office in Beijing’s Dongcheng district; he needed to pay into his Social Security-style insurance fund and have the payment registered into his dang’an.
“I’m not curious to open my file,” he said. “I don’t think there is anything bad in it. . . . I got the highest grade in my class so I’m not worried.”
Chen Chao, a 34-year-old vendor also waiting in line, agreed. “If you didn’t commit a crime, why do you need to look at your file?” he asked, adding that he’s looking forward to an e-system. “An electric file will be more convenient for me. I believe the workers here have professional ethics, so they won’t leak my information.”