Unpacking China’s Social Credit System: Informatization, Regulatory Framework, and Market Dynamics

Abstract

Background China, with a population of 802 million internet users, a handful of the world’s largest internet companies, and an unfolding Social Credit System (SCS), is often criticized for exerting its data power to surveil and discipline its population. Analysis This article first provides a historical and situated analysis of the SCS as a part of China’s informatization and datafication processes. It then highlights problems in the current legal and regulatory data-protection framework and discusses the self-regulation practices of the private sector. Conclusions and implications Overall, this case study provides a historical and contextualized understanding of China’s SCS and related big data developments and assesses the implications of these development for the globalizing Chinese internet, technology companies and the Chinese public.Contexte Avec une population de 802 million d’utilisateurs d’Internet, avec quelques des plus grandes sociétés Internet du monde, et une Système de Crédit Sociale (SCS) en pleine développement, La Chine est souvent critiqué pour utilizer son pouvoir de données pour surveiller et discipliner sa population. Analyse Tout d’abord, cet article fournit une analyse historique et située de la SCS comme partie des processus de informatisation et datafication de la Chine. Ensuite, il souligne les problèmes du cadre juridique et régulatoire actuel en matière de protection des données et examine les pratiques d’autorégulation du secteur privé.Conclusions et implications En global, cette étude de cas fournit une compréhension historique et contextualisée du SCS chinois et de l’évolution du Big Data, et évalue les implications de ce développement pour l’Internet chinois en pleine mondialisation, les entreprises technologiques et le public chinois.

Repercussions of Social Credit System as an ICT-Based Management System on Tourism System

“…In 2006, the customers were required to provide banks with information regarding their sociocultural situations in addition to their financial information as a part of banks' lending policies and in 2007, the system was theoretically framed with the issue of "several opinions concerning the construction of a social credit system" (Creemers, 2018;Liu, 2019;Zhang & Zhang, 2016). In 2014, the system was put into practice as a crediting mechanism that covers the whole society, being more than just a socialist financial market policy (Creemers, 2018;Jia, 2020). As a matter of fact, the first commercial step of this was taken within the scope of Alibaba's Sesame Credit Score (Liu, 2019).…”

“…The desire to move from an agricultural society to an industrial one and to exercise control at a high level have made new technologies necessary (Jia, 2020). For this reason, information and communication technology (ICT) based systems have been accepted and integrated as a panacea for solving social problems (Jia, 2020;Kshetri, 2020;Meissner, 2017).…”

“…The desire to move from an agricultural society to an industrial one and to exercise control at a high level have made new technologies necessary (Jia, 2020). For this reason, information and communication technology (ICT) based systems have been accepted and integrated as a panacea for solving social problems (Jia, 2020;Kshetri, 2020;Meissner, 2017). Besides, omnipresent cameras, sensors, the like and share features on social media, and other digital devices that have settled into modern life have integrated surveillance and scoring into society.…”

“…SCS also causes data driven authoritarianism (Lee, 2019). For this reason, it is estimated that digital authoritarian surveillance can be adopted (Jia, 2020;Mayer, 2020) by governments as a result of the global spread of the information and communication technology companies and that it can be used (Hoffman, 2018;Lee, 2019;Mayer, 2020;Meissner & Wübbeke, 2016) in countries that have adopted the authoritarian government policy of SCS that started in China. As this system is favored (Kostka, 2019) by the Chinese community, it allows other countries to also carry out SCS which increases the possibility of future societies adopting SCS.…”

“…SCS covers a range of tourism activities and (Jia, 2020) the tourism sector is one of the sectors under SCS (Meissner, 2017). The data regarding travel information is also collected within SCS (Liang et al, 2018).…”