China’s Social Credit System: A Step Towards Dystopia? Part Three: 2014 Social Credit Plan

The 2014 Planning Outline for the Construction of a Social Credit System is the most important document in the history of the SCS. It combines the economic and social goals of the system in a comprehensive plan encapsulating everything we’ve discussed so far.

This is a massive document with a lot of colorful but ultimately useless jargon to sift through. My summary looks like this: 5 goals in 4 primary sectors with 3 main pieces of technical infrastructure and 2 notable exclusions leading to 1 plan for COMPLETE AND TOTAL CONTROL. It’s a lot to take in — skim it once or twice, file it away, and keep moving.

5 goals by 2020:

1. A legal framework for the social credit system
2. A regulatory framework for the social credit system
3. Centralized oversight and investigation for the social credit system
4. Using the social credit system to make the market economy more efficient
5. Establishing punishment/reward mechanisms based on the social credit system

4 sectors:

1. Politics: the government should model high social credit for its citizens
2. Economics: the social credit system will enable participants in the economy to make better decisions
3. Social services: healthcare (a notoriously shaky part of life in China) will become more reliable and efficient
4. Courts and the judicial system: reduce corruption in law practices and enable courts to carry out sentences more uniformly and effectively

3 pieces of technical infrastructure:

1. Standards for recording credit information across different departments
2. Provisions for local and national databases of credit data
3. Implementing the system of rewards and punishments based on blacklists and redlists

2 notable items that were not included in the original document:

1. Quantitative credit scoring: the Planning Document refers exclusively to blacklists and redlists, which are binary: you’re either on it or you’re not
2. Correlative big data analysis based on the assembled databases: it would be naive to think the government will just let the data sit there, but this document at least does not delve into details

Put this all together and you have the makings of a formidable system, albeit one that is several degrees of separation from an AI government overlord.

The most visible implementation of the ideas in this document is the Joint Punishment System, which we’ll take a look at next.

Next: Part Four: Joint Punishment System

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