By 2020 (in less than 3 years), the government of China plans to have a system that assigns each person a social rating based on the person’s financial transactions, how he or she behaves in public and at work, etc. Already, face-recognition technology installed along streets detects jaywalkers and displays their photos on large public screens. These systems and more would be linked together to create the social rating.
Several Chinese companies already partially implement a slimmed down version of this system as part of their normal services. The United States has a smaller version of this in its "Credit Score" system.
This BBC article can serve as a starting point for investigating this system and others similar:
China 'social credit': Beijing sets up huge system
Commercial systems that are currently implemented, for example with Sesame, Alibaba and Baihe, Chinese users seem to accept the social score as something good. As is quoted in the article, "Credit systems build trust between all citizens."
Research, Analyze, Decide, Propose
Assume the role of a data engineer at either Google, Facebook or Amazon. Each of these companies compete globally with Alibaba. Your department head has asked you to put together a short memo that would persuade her executive vice president that the company should use the massive amount of data it gathers on its members to creating a "social rating" also.
Post at least two carefully supported reasons why Google or Amazon should pursue this strategy.
Post reasons why customers of Google, Facebook or Amazon would resist a social scoring system? What differences (if any) are there between Chinese citizens, and citizens of America, India or other nations?
For the classroom: Comment on at least one other classmates posts. "Like" a classmate's post that was particularly persuasive and comment why.