https://www.wired.com/story/age-of-social-credit/Quote
In 2015, when Lazarus Liu moved home to China after studying logistics in the United Kingdom for three years, he quickly noticed that something had changed: Everyone paid for everything with their phones. At McDonald’s, the convenience store, even at mom-and-pop restaurants, his friends in Shanghai used mobile payments. Cash, Liu could see, had been largely replaced by two smartphone apps: Alipay and WeChat Pay. One day, at a vegetable market, he watched a woman his mother’s age pull out her phone to pay for her groceries. He decided to sign up.
To get an Alipay ID, Liu had to enter his cell phone number and scan his national ID card. He did so reflexively. Alipay had built a reputation for reliability, and compared to going to a bank managed with slothlike indifference and zero attention to customer service, signing up for Alipay was almost fun. With just a few clicks he was in. Alipay’s slogan summed up the experience: “Trust makes it simple.”
Alipay turned out to be so convenient that Liu began using it multiple times a day, starting first thing in the morning, when he ordered breakfast through a food delivery app. He realized that he could pay for parking through Alipay’s My Car feature, so he added his driver’s license and license plate numbers, as well as the engine number of his Audi. He started making his car insurance payments with the app. He booked doctors’ appointments there, skipping the chaotic lines for which Chinese hospitals are famous. He added friends in Alipay’s built-in social network. When Liu went on vacation with his fiancée (now his wife) to Thailand, they paid at restaurants and bought trinkets with Alipay. He stored whatever money was left over, which wasn’t much once the vacation and car were paid for, in an Alipay money market account. He could have paid his electricity, gas, and internet bills in Alipay’s City Service section. Like many young Chinese who had become enamored of the mobile payment services offered by Alipay and WeChat, Liu stopped bringing his wallet when he left the house.
Liu told me that he chose his English name, Lazarus, after converting to Catholicism three years ago, but that his religion was mostly a private affair. He saw his Zhima Credit score the same way; it revealed something about him, but he kept those insights mostly to himself. He rarely checked his score—it just lurked in the background of the Alipay app on his Samsung—and because it was good, he didn’t have to. After starting at 600 out of a possible 950 points, he had reached 722, a score that entitled him to favorable terms on loans and apartment rentals, as well as showcasing on several dating apps should he and his wife ever split up. With a few dozen more points, he could get a streamlined visa to Luxembourg, not that he was planning such a trip.
As Liu amassed a favorable transaction and payment history on Alipay, his score naturally improved. But it could go down if he neglected to pay a traffic fine, for example. And the privileges that come with a high score might someday be revoked for behaviors that have nothing to do with consumer etiquette. In June 2015, as 9.4 million Chinese teenagers took the grueling national college entrance examination, Hu Tao, the Zhima Credit general manager, told reporters that Ant Financial hoped to obtain a list of students who cheated, so that the fraud could become a blight on their Zhima Credit records. “There should be consequences for dishonest behavior,” she avowed. The good were moving without obstruction. A threat hung over the rest.
Just a snippet of the article, but I think people will get the gist of it with this. China is introducing a social credit system, a la Black Mirror ("Nosedive" is the name of the episode). The system is in trial but will become compulsory in 2020. So what this means is that if you abide by the rules, and follow party lines, you will achieve a higher score. Obedience to the government is rewarded. Easier access to mortgages, rentals, visas, etc. Carrot instead of the stick. But already, there are talks about the introduction of the stick.
And the worst part of it? Your score is affected by your social network. Have a good friend that doesn't play by the rules, even though you do? Too bad, your score will tank.
This is dystopia come to life.