Video: China train warns citizens to behave for social credit system

A
video published on Monday of an announcement on a train from
Beijing to Shanghai warning people to adhere to the train’s rules
or else be penalized by the country’s social credit
system.
Psythor/Twitter

A chilling announcement on a train from Beijing to Shanghai shows
how the future of China could be dominated by people living in
fear of a nationwide social credit system, which will rank all
its 1.4 billion citizens based on their behavior.

The social credit system is basically an extension of a person’s
financial credit score, which will be mandatory nationwide in
2020. But instead of just tracking financial performance, people
will also be ranked on their “trustworthiness.”

People with bad scores are punished, while those with good scores
are rewarded – click here to find out why.

Freelance journalist James O’Malley on Monday posted a video
taken inside a bullet train between Beijing and Shanghai.

In the video a female voice announced over the intercom in
English that people who travel without a ticket or “behave
disorderly” — like smoking in public places — would be “punished
according to regulations, and the behavior will be recorded in
individual credit information system.”

Watch a video of the announcement here:

It’s not clear what the “orders” and “regulations” are. But
previous government notices have focused on transport-specific
offences like loitering at airport check-in desks and boarding
gates.

The social credit system is due to roll out in 2020, but various
cities have launched pilot programs and a disparate collection of
blacklists. It relies on information such as facial recognition
software and getting citizens to report on each other to local
authorities.

People have already either been
punished and rewarded based on their social credit: Earlier
this year a
student was denied his spot at university because his father
was blacklisted for failing to pay off a 200,000-yuan
($28,700/£22,400) bank loan. Others have been banned from taking
trains because of their score.

On the other hand, those with good scores are given perks like
not having to pay a cash deposit when booking hotels, or getting
their profile boosted on a dating website.

A
February 2018 promotion video by tech company LLVision shows an
actor wearing facial-recognition glasses out to root out people
on the street.
Thomas
Peter/Reuters

The eastern Chinese city of Jinan also started enforcing a

social credit system for dog owners last year, whereby
registered owners have to purchase a license, and have points on
it deducted if they don’t clean up after their dog or walk their
pet without a leash.

Those who lost all their points had their dogs confiscated and
were required to pass a test on regulations required for pet
ownership.

The ultimate goal of the system is to hammer into citizens the
idea that “keeping trust is glorious and breaking trust is
disgraceful,” the Chinese government has said.