How a Social Score Gets You China’s Goods and Services

We begin today in a Beijing public bathroom with a theft problem.

When toilet paper began disappearing, the authorities assumed it was needy senior citizens. The solution was a facial recognition surveillance system. People using the toilet first had to stand in front of a camera for three seconds. Then, automatically, they got their paper ration.

…When it worked.

Sometimes the wait ballooned to a minute. At other times, no paper popped out of the equipment.

But the key for us is the facial recognition.

Using facial recognition, China has begun to develop a social scoring system that decides who gets what. While a high score might get you a discount plane fare, a low rating could prevent you from boarding a train. According to one Chinese official, it will “allow the trustworthy to roam everywhere under heaven while making it hard for the discredited to take a single step.”

China’s Social Scoring System

Still in their infancy, permutations of the system are being tested.

They could use these inputs:

To decide who gets these goods and services:

Shanghai

Meanwhile, Shanghai is experimenting with a social scoring pilot program that is overseen by the Commission of Economy and Informatization. Voluntarily, people can participate through an app that just needs a national security number for the sign-up. After accessing as many as 3,000 examples, the system gives the individual a rating of very good, good, or bad.

Shenzhen

Just one small piece of a person’s score, jaywalking is being recorded in Shenzhen. In a Wall Street Journal article, one 31 year old woman told of having her jaywalking photographed twice. Seeing a crosswalk screen note her second violation, she said, “I won’t ever run a red light again.” (My goodness, I can’t imagine seeing my face on NYC’s stop and go crossing signs!)

Our Bottom Line: Three Economic Questions

China’s social scoring could be targeting individual behavior and corrupt businesses.

Also though, like any economic system, it provides answers to three basic questions:

1. What? We have to ask which goods and services should be produced because the supply of all land, labor and capital is limited.
2. How? When making goods and services, we have to select our land, labor and capital.
3. To whom? And finally, we have to know how wealth will be distributed. Will it be equal or market-related…or based on social scoring?

My sources and more: Combined, this Guardian story on toilet paper theft andWSJ articles on China’s social scoring, here and here, cover it all. But also you might enjoy a Foreign Policy analysis, an NPR look at Shanghai’s Honesty Week, and some Washington Post  insight.