Title: ACLU: Orwellian Citizen Score, China's credit score system, is a warning for Americans | Computerworld
Headings: ACLU: Orwellian Citizen Score, China's credit score system, is a warning for Americans
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ACLU: Orwellian Citizen Score, China's credit score system, is a warning for Americans
In China, every citizen is being assigned a credit score that drops if a person buys and plays video games, or posts political comments online “without prior permission," or even if social media "friends" do so. The ACLU said the credit rating system, an Orwellian nightmare, should serve as a warning to Americans.
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Content: “With the help of the latest internet technologies the government wants to exercise individual surveillance,” stated Rogier Creemers, a Belgian China-specialist at Oxford University. “ Government and big internet companies in China can exploit ‘Big Data’ together in a way that is unimaginable in the West.” [ Prepare to become a Certified Information Security Systems Professional with this comprehensive online course from PluralSight. Now offering a 10-day free trial! ] A citizen’s credit score can be hurt by buying video games, posting political comments without obtaining prior permission, “talking about or describing a different history than the official one, or even publishing accurate up-to-date news from the Shanghai stock market collapse (which was and is embarrassing to the Chinese regime).” Pirate Party Founder Rick Falkvinge added: But the kicker is that if any of your friends do this — publish opinions without prior permission, or report accurate but embarrassing news — your score will also deteriorate. And this will have a direct impact on your quality of life. Alibaba, a shopping site, and the social network Tencent, which are the companies running all the social networks in China, will be running the system; the companies have access “to a vast amount of data about people’s social ties and activities and what they say.”