Real-Life Dystopia: China Transforms With Social Credit Score

People have always been a fan of dystopian media -- the idea of Big Brother, dystopian literature, and even dystopian films. However, China may be at the top of it all because of its Social Credit System.

In hindsight, it may appear to be every Orwellian paranoiac's "worst nightmare." Sadly, the technology to make this happen is very well within our reach, so how can this impact society?

According to Futurism, the move itself is controversial enough. The Chinese government is planning to implement a system that gives and collects the financial, social, legal, and political credit "ratings" of students into a social credit score.

The idea behind everything seems something straight out of science fiction. However, it's beginning to take shape. In fact, Futurism added that for a nation that has a more or less "openly totalitarian" approach to governance, the move to install a social credit system shouldn't be all too surprising. 

According to Financial Times, proponents of the idea are already testing the various aspects of the system. They are to gather digital records of citizens, specifically financial behavior. The social credit score system will determine whether or not a citizen can avail themselves of certain services.

Wang Zhicheng of Peking University told the Wall Street Journal the country has a way to go before it "assigns" a score to everyone. After all, it needs to work the accuracy of the data. 

This means, while it may take time, it may only take a matter of time before the data of around 1.4 billion people eventually get consolidated in a social credit system. This appears to be something straight out of Orwell, where the score of citizens get to be the basis for access to services such as travel and education to loans and insurance.

Although the Wall Street Journal reports that supporters have their reasons. For instance, it may arrive at a unitary system to grant citizens access to financial services as 1.3 billion Chinese citizens don't own credit cards.

They also assured that the system "would allow the trustworthy to roam everywhere under heaven while making it hard for the discredited to take a single step."