The Prestige oracles

The Secret Scribbler on why China’s citizen scores are terrifying

THE WORLD IS worried about China’s “citizen scores” as well as a surveillance network that makes Big Brother look like Big Bird from Sesame Street.

But I’ve been a victim of a formidable Social Credit System since the day I was born. It’s called my mother.

China’s spying technology might be dominating headlines now, but they’ve got nothing on my Mother. I believed she had more spies than Vladimir Putin.

“You were out kissing that girl on the street corner again,” she’d say. “No I wasn’t,” I’d cry from the bathroom, frantically pouring bleach across my shirt to remove any traces of lipstick. “Yes, you were. A little birdie told me.”

There were always little birdies around our housing estate, spying on my mother’s behalf. As a child, I believed they were actual birds, carrier pigeons or something, relaying chirps and tweets back to my mother.

She perfected her version of the Social Credit System long before Beijing. My rating pendulum always swung between credit and debit, depending on my mother’s surveillance and how often I was caught.

“You didn’t study last night, you played football,” she’d say. “No pocket money for a week.”

“You didn’t do your homework, you went to the mall with the girl with the funny eye. She must have a funny eye, if she wants to go out with you. Ha! Two weeks with no pocket money.”

My mother was decades ahead of China, monitoring and determining my character before it became fashionable among governments and retail conglomerates.

China hopes to have its Social Credit System up and running by 2020, which will track an individual’s online behaviour and lifestyle choices. This information is used to set a “citizen score” when it comes to home loans and job applications. Low ratings may be given to “lazy” citizens who play video games or make poor choices when it comes to “interpersonal relationships”.

I spent years buying Star Wars figures with my lunch money and playing Pac-man with a friend who had difficulty spelling his own name. In China, a bank wouldn’t lend me any cash to buy a Lego house.

Of course, the Chinese concept of credit and trust — xin yong — has a significant cultural meaning and goes beyond money. Local authorities run social credit pilots to monitor their citizens’ personal values. For instance, do they look after their parents? Do they skip fares on public transport? Do they rescue cats trapped in trees? I made up the last one, which is just as well as I’m guilty of the other two.

As a child of limited means, I had to choose between paying the bus fare and buying lunch. I kept the money, starved myself and bought a Star Wars figure. As an adult, I don’t really look after my parents either. I just send my mother daily text messages. If the Chinese started monitoring our exchanges, their spies wouldn’t learn anything beyond my mother’s disturbing obsession with the Kardashians.

But such monitoring techniques are not unique to China. In Europe, car insurance schemes promise lower premiums if customers install tracking devices. Health insurance firms in Singapore offer incentives in return for access to one’s exercise data.

Even online dating services are known to give prominence to those with good scores. For the first time, ugly people can now be front and centre of dating pages — as long as they pay their bills on time.

But the Chinese are certainly leading the way. Right now, their Citizen Scores scheme is voluntary. By 2020, it will be mandatory. Every citizen and business will be rated and ranked accordingly. Every move we make, they’ll be watching us, like the Sting song. And no one wants to be stared at by Sting all day long.

I explained China’s surveillance plans to my mother. “Good idea,” she said. “We need to keep an eye on people, like I did with you.”

It was then pointed out that every single online search and transaction could be monitored. Every time the phone is switched on, someone is watching. The thought terrified my mother: “But I always read my phone on the toilet. I don’t want China watching me on the toilet!”

Believe me, nobody wants that.