A vast network of 200 million CCTV cameras across China ensures there’s no dark corner in which to hide. Social credit is like a personal scorecard for each of China’s 1.4 billion citizens, which will unite Big Brother and big data to coerce more than a billion people. In one pilot program already in place, each citizen has been assigned a score out of 800. Big data from more traditional sources like government records, including educational and medical, state security assessments and financial records, will be fed into individual scores. It’s probably the largest social engineering project ever attempted, a way to control and coerce more than a billion people..Those with top “citizen scores” get VIP treatment at hotels and airports, cheap loans and a fast track to the best universities and jobs.If successful, it will be the world’s first digital dictatorship."
At www.abc.net.au
