C. Custer
10:30 am on Oct 8, 2015
China’s ‘citizen scores’ credit system isn’t as Orwellian as the ACLU thinks…yet
Recently, you may have come across
this ACLU piece – or any of the dozens of sites reblogging it – about China’s new citizen score system. Mandatory credit scores for everyone that take into account everything from your video game purchases (that’ll drop your score) to your friends’ political activities? Rewards like travel visas for those with good scores? It sounds like a nightmare.
Thankfully, it’s not quite as bad as all that.
The ACLU seems to have been confused about a few things, but here’s the key one: Alibaba’s Sesame Credit scoring system, Tencent’s credit scoring system, and the mandatory government one (which isn’t mandatory until 2020) are not the same things. They are three different things that many articles in the Western press are treating as if they were the same.
Alibaba and Tencent’s credit systems: two different non-government products
Sesame Credit does offer some of the features outlined in the ACLU article. It doesn’t hand out Singapore visas, obviously – I’m not sure how that would even be possible – but it
was offering promotions for people with high credit scores, including access to a high-speed VIP check-in at Beijing’s Capital International Airport. China’s government has not endorsed this, though. In fact,
according to Caixin, China’s central bank is annoyed by the promotional tactics and has reportedly ordered Sesame Credit to stop offering the airport promotional benefit.
The online score-sharing and bragging alluded to by the ACLU also seems to be coming primarily from Sesame Credit. Some critics have accused the scoring system of essentially being a marketing gimmick designed to promote use of Alibaba’s payment service Alipay (since an increased number of transactions will raise your score).
Many of the other details from the ACLU’s article seem to be based on Tencent’s credit score system, which
does mine data from users’ social networks in order to determine their credit. I haven’t been able to find any direct statement that Tencent factors in users’ political post history – or that of their friends – in determining a credit score.
The difference between the two systems makes sense when you think about the companies’ backgrounds. Ecommerce-focused Alibaba’s credit system is based heavily in users’ purchase and payment history. Social giant Tencent’s credit system is based on users’ social networks. Each company is leveraging the data to which it has access. China doesn’t have a national, comprehensive, and widely-used credit system like those in the West, so private lenders like Alibaba and Tencent have created these systems to better inform their lending decisions
Tech in Asia contacted both Tencent and Alibaba for this story but has not yet received a response from either firm.
The government’s 2020 credit scoring system
China’s government-mandated credit system is wholly separate from the Alibaba and Tencent systems already on the market. It’s not entirely clear yet how the system will work, but the best source of information about it currently is
the State Council planning document that was published and circulated last year.
That lengthy document, which is full of political rhetoric, doesn’t give a clear idea of how exactly the system will work, or on what grounds scores will be based. It’s clear from the text that Chinese authorities don’t want a credit system that’s completely focused on finances; rather they paint the new system as a way of rewarding “sincerity” (and punishing insincerity) throughout society.
Given that, it seems likely that some of the ACLU’s fears might eventually come true: if the government wants its credit system to enforce social morality, then collecting data on everything from political activities to purchase histories might well be on the table. And there’s little in the Chinese government’s history to suggest it would be unwilling to construct such a credit system and make it mandatory.
For the moment, though, take whatever you read with a grain of salt. China has no mandatory “citizen score” system yet, and the details popping up all over the web about that system appear to be taken from Alibaba and Tencent’s wholly separate, definitely-not-mandatory credit scoring systems. A lot of these details also appear to be exaggerated.
China's 'citizen scores' system isn't so Orwellian...yet
