Social Credit System

The Social Credit System is a proposed Chinese government initiative for developing a national reputation system. It has been reported to be intended to assign a "social credit" rating to every citizen based on government data regarding their economic and social status.Xinhuanet has reported that the plan for the system "focuses on credit in four areas, including administrative affairs, commercial activities, social behavior, and the judicial system."

As of September 2016^[update], this system does not yet exist, and very little firm information is available about how this system might work in practice. Some reports have stated that the ratings may use information gathered from Chinese citizens' online behavior.

As part of the development of this system, the Chinese government is reported to be monitoring the progress of third-party Chinese credit rating systems such as Sesame Credit.

Rogier Creemers, a post-doctoral scholar at the Programme for Comparative Media Law and Policy at the University of Oxford has posted a translation of the "State Council Notice concerning Issuance of the Planning Outline for the Construction of a Social Credit System (2014-2020)", the outline often mentioned in Western news outlet stories.

The episode Nosedive of the TV series Black Mirror explores some of the negative implications of a system like the Social Credit System, as did the episode "App Development and Condiments" of Community.

The Social Credit System will not be applied to Hong Kong and Macau.

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