Chinese Social Credit System App Now Alerts You If Someone In Debt Is Near You

Google knows a lot about you: what you look like, how you sound, your favourite place to get coffee. But all that information stays within Google, it isn't handed over to the government, who can then use it to decide if you deserve a mortgage or can go on holiday. 

In China, things work a little differently. The country is rolling out in stages a social credit system (to be completed in 2020) giving all citizens an identity number that will be linked to a constantly updated score based on observed behaviors, including who you associate with.

A new app that alerts users if someone within 500 yards of them is in debt is the the first step to controlling one's associations - making sure you only fraternize with highly rated people.

Dubbed the "Map of Deadbeat Debtors," the app was launched in Northern China after the Higher People's Court of Hebei developed it as a means to name and shame debtors, according to China Daily.

Users of the app will be alerted if they are in close proximity to debt and will also be able to tap avatars on a map to access to the name, national identification number and reason why the "deadbeat" made the list.

"It's a part of our measures to enforce our rulings and create a socially credible environment," a court spokesman told the state-owned newspaper.

Authorities hope the app will enable people to blow the whistle on debtors who are capable of paying their debts, the newspaper added - essentially turning citizens into snitches who can more easily point the finger at financially irresponsible, or unlucky, compatriots. 

There is no reason the debt app can't be rolled out to a large number of other factors that people might want to be alerted about - including one's overall social credit score.

The app joins a suite of other new surveillance programs so that every aspect of your life is under scrutiney.

A large part of this program will be possible through the rapid deployment of surveillance cameras throughou the country.  Some 626 million are currently operating and many millions more will be rolling out soon. 

For example, an instance of jaywalking, caught by one of those cameras, will result in a reduction in score.

Although officials might hope to reduce jaywalking, they seem to have far more sinister ambitions, such as ensuring conformity to Communist Party political demands. In short, the government looks as if it is determined to create what the Economist called "the world's first digital totalitarian state."

At present, there are more than a dozen national blacklists created by the system.

Officials prevented Liu Hu, a journalist, from taking a flight because he had a low score. The Global Times, a tabloid that belongs to the Communist Party-owned People's Daily, reported that, as of the end of April 2018, authorities had blocked individuals from taking 11.14 million flights and 4.25 million high-speed rail trips.

Chinese officials, however, are using the lists for determining more than just access to planes and trains. "I can't buy property. My child can't go to a private school," Liu said. "You feel you're being controlled by the list all the time."

The system is designed to control conduct by giving the ruling Communist Party the ability to administer punishments and hand out rewards. And the system could end up being unforgiving. 

Hou Yunchun, a former deputy director of the State Council's development research center, said at a forum in Beijing in May that the social credit system should be administered so that "discredited people become bankrupt". "If we don't increase the cost of being discredited, we are encouraging discredited people to keep at it," Hou said. "That destroys the whole standard."

Not every official has such a vindictive attitude, but it appears that all share the assumption, as the dovish Zhi Zhenfeng of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences said, that "discredited people deserve legal consequences."

President Xi Jinping, the final and perhaps only arbiter in China, has made it clear how he feels about the availability of second chances. "Once untrustworthy, always restricted," the Chinese ruler says.

What happens, then, to a country where only the compliant are allowed to board a plane or be rewarded with discounts for government services? No one quite knows because never before has a government had the ability to constantly assess everyone and then enforce its will. 

The People's Republic has been more meticulous in keeping files and ranking residents than previous Chinese governments, and computing power and artificial intelligence are now giving China's officials extraordinary capabilities.