As with just about everything else reported on here, it will likely come to be because, good honest people have nothing to fear.
It would be far nicer if the focus was only the positive, getting plus points for community involvement, never committing a violent crime, being employed in recent years…
How long before having too few friends on Facebook singles you out as a credit risk?
More than three dozen local governments across China are beginning to compile digital records of social and financial behavior to rate creditworthiness. A person can incur black marks for infractions such as fare cheating, jaywalking and violating family-planning rules. The effort echoes the dang’an, a system of dossiers the Communist party keeps on urban workers’ behavior.
In time, Beijing expects to draw on bigger, combined data pools, including a person’s internet activity, according to interviews with some architects of the system and a review of government documents. Algorithms would use a range of data to calculate a citizen’s rating, which would then be used to determine all manner of activities, such as who gets loans, or faster treatment at government offices or access to luxury hotels.
Source: Wall Street Journal
