Everyone here has heard about how notorious certain groups of tourists can be especially when in a foreign country. But don’t let some bad apples affect your entire image of a country. That is what China is aiming for with their social credit score which they aim to implement countrywide within 2020.
What is a social credit score? That is still unknown to many but some say it is a combination of your credit score as well as your score based on social media behaviour as well as public score. Caught smoking in a non-smoking area, get a bad score. Spread fake news online, get a bad score. Get caught up in too much debt, get a bad score.
Eventually, when you get a bad score, things are going to get harder in life. Harder? Yes, you get banned from travelling, you get blacklisted and apparently, people who have good social credit scores will be prioritised over the rest. Want to queue in line for the latest gadget? Stand all the way at the back if you get a poor social credit score. Trying to catch a train back to your hometown during the Chinese New Year, good luck getting one if you have a bad social credit score.
Up till now, many quarters have been crying out that these scores are an invasion of privacy but the Chinese government has made its participation voluntary for the moment and only in 2020 will it be mandatory. It sounds like it will be interesting to see it rolled out to such a large scale. Imagine those who have bad social credit scores are barred from entering the highway, or even certain lanes on the road are reserved for those who have a better score.
Only in China will you see something like this occurring. But in their defence, this was set up due to the people abusing the system and the government is using this as a way to deter these people including dissenters. One would call it a snooping bill while another would call it a way to weed out the bad from the good.
