China’s Social Credit System: A Step Towards Dystopia? Part Five: Barriers
Even though considerable progress has been made, the SCS will face significant challenges moving forward. The most noteworthy of these are fragmentation and mass buy-in.
Even though the government holds authority on paper, profit and morals have strained relationships between the public and private sectors. Tencent and Alibaba, two of China’s internet giants each worth more than Facebook, have both been scolded for their own implementations of social credit, with the government going as far to shut Tencent’s down. The cited reason is that the programs were “not aligned with the central vision”. It will require a cohesive effort, likely involving compromises from both sides, to move forward effectively.
Ultimate buy-in from citizens is also not a given. While the state holds significant power, it is not immune to public scrutiny. It was not long ago that the Suining social credit experiment was forced to shut down after a public outcry. Signs of trouble continue today, including concerning reports that outspoken politically active people have been put on blacklists without proper notification or any way to appeal their placement. The National Development and Reform Commission has paid lip service to addressing this issues, but has not yet taken any action.
Building a technical infrastructure to coordinate and digitize data for a billion people and millions of businesses won’t be easy either. There are several broad steps to take, each with its own set of challenges.
The first and biggest step is to set up a universal identification system, by enforcing and enhancing existing infrastructure and creating new rules to fill in the gaps.
For individuals, the SCS has piggybacked on the 2003 Identity Card Law which issued an 18 digit identification code to all citizens. While convenient on paper, adopting this policy digitally nationwide is easier said than done in a country where just 25% of the population had a credit report in 2012. Linking social media accounts to real people has only complicated matters; there have been efforts to implement real-name signups but these systems can be very difficult to enforce.
For businesses, things are even more complex, since each sector of government (taxes, social security, census, etc.) previously implemented its own identification system. A system has been proposed to combine “five licenses in one” following a similar 18-digit identification scheme as individual Identity Card Law, but it largely remains a work in progress.
After the data has been collected, it must be stored — that’s where the “Credit China” platform comes in. This is a collaboration between the government and internet company Baidu to concentrate all of the social credit information across all sectors in one place.
The final stage is to actually do something with this treasure trove of data. It’s easy to imagine massive, all-seeing big data analysis, but the reality is harder to interpret. Either this part of the plan has not been developed yet, or is being kept under wraps. There is currently no automated public-facing action on the data besides its basic use for credit scores.
It is apparent that there are significant hurdles in place before the SCS can become a omniscient self-governing presence. As of now, it’s still best viewed as a fragmented system with a shared underlying set of policies.
Next: Part Six: Looking Ahead
Part One: Introduction
Part Two: Historical Context
Part Three: 2014 Social Credit Plan
Part Four: Joint Punishment System
Part Five: Barriers
Part Six: Looking Ahead
