Daily Mail
September 19, 2018
It sounds eerily similar to the plot of an episode of Charlie Brooker’s popular dystopian science fiction series Black Mirror.
But China’s controversial social credit system – which ranks all of its 1.4 billion citizens on their behaviour in real-time – is real, and it’s on track to launch by 2020.
Completing community service and buying Chinese products is thought to improve your social standing, which is given as a score out of 800.
Those rated ‘top citizens’ get VIP treatment at airports, discounted loans, waived deposits on hotel and car rentals and fast-tracking to elite universities.
Fraud, tax evasion and smoking in non-smoking areas can drop your ranking, as well as buying items in supermarkets that the government doesn’t approve of – such as alcohol or video games.
Those with a low social score are barred from the best jobs, cut off from high-speed internet and even blocked from sending their children to top schools.
China is planning to use a network of up to 600 million AI-powered surveillance cameras dotted around its major cities to enforce the system.
- A d v e r t i s e m e n t
The programme has already completed successful trials in provinces across China, and is bolstered by facial recognition, body scanning and geo-tracking technology.
This article was posted: Wednesday, September 19, 2018 at 8:25 am
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