China Working On Social Trustability Score

The Chinese government is gearing up to develop a system that connects a person’s financial, social, political and legal credit ratings into one social trustability score.

According to a report, the idea behind the social trustability score is that, if someone breaks trust in one aspect of their lives, they will be negatively affected in other aspects. Supporters of the idea say it’s necessary because a lot of China’s 1.3 billion citizens don’t use a credit card. What’s more, China doesn’t have the equivalent to a FICO score, like the U.S. does, which makes it hard for bankers and lenders to make lending decisions.

The report noted that Sesame Credit, a unit of Alibaba, is already using a social credit system to determine customers’ scores. The system uses a number of different factors, such as when someone received a traffic ticket, whether or not they paid their taxes and their purchasing habits on the internet. That information is put into algorithms to determine the score. The report noted that people who purchase a lot of video games, for example, would be considered to have too much time on their hands. Someone buying diapers online would be viewed as a responsible parent. Customers with high scores can rent bikes without leaving a deposit or skip hospital lines by paying once they leave the hospital.

Those with poor scores won’t be considered for public office, will lose access to social security and welfare, will be frisked more thoroughly when passing through Chinese customs and will be shut out of senior-level positions in the food and drug sector. Those with bad scores won’t be able to get beds on overnight trains, won’t be able to go to higher star ranked hotels and restaurants and their kids won’t be allowed at the pricier private schools, noted the report.