Will we see China’s social ranking system become a worldwide reality?

China’s social credit system is taking leaps and bounds towards it becoming a terrifying reality. The social ranking system is meant to be fully implemented around 2021 in China capital, Beijing. What the social ranking system will do is rank members of the public based upon their behaviour and actions throughout 2019 and 2020.

Their score does have the ability to go up as well as down but, it only goes up when they follow the rules and are a law abiding and model citizens. The programme is essentially set in place to watch those who are found to break laws or social codes, the system will restrict their access to items. The consequences so far that have been announced are as follows. If a citizens score falls below the line that is deemed to be acceptable, they will face the following consequences; being banned from travelling by plane and train, slowing their internet speed down on their phone and at home, banning them or their children from going to good schools and universities, stopping them from getting a good job, being banned from entering good hotels (not being allowed to stay or visit for a meal), taking away their dog, and being publicly listed as a bad citizen in their community area.

China’s social ranking system will have a large effect on many individuals, and can damage people’s quality of life in doing so. People feeling the pressures of being watched 24/7 will have its consequences, especially on people’s mental and physical health, and some people may find it too much all together, how would you react to being watched at all times? The social profile of people will be collected and kept in a government database, and they will be collected by many different government agencies.

Certain items have already been implemented warning people of how their scores could be lowered. For example train announcements now warn travellers if they don’t have a ticket it can affect their score. In other places all over China more cameras have been added, such places as at pedestrian
crossings where if they cross when red, it can lower their score. What do you think the pros and cons of this will be? Do you think it will work at all? Is it a breach of privacy? Do you think the results will be instant? Do you think it will pay off in the long run? Reports have already said that they feel like people have already seen an improvement in people’s behaviour. Is the threat of discipline enough to prevent people from doing certain things? Do you think that they will have to see the repercussions of not behaving well to fully believe the system is implemented.

If this is successful in changing people’s behaviour and deterring bad behaviour, do you think we will see it implemented anywhere else across the world? Do you think we will see it one day in the UK or US? Do you think human rights groups will step in to stop this? Let us know what you think of the social ranking system.