China Reveals New Plan To Monitor Every Resident By 2020
China’s surveillance state is continuing to grow with Beijing’s new plan to collect data based on residents’ social behavior.
China’s capital city announced a new “action plan” on Monday that will roll out by 2020. The program will reward and punish Beijing’s 22 million residents based on data collected from various departments.
“By the end of 2020, the Beijing Municipal Social Credit Regulations will be completed, and the legal system will be used to guide and promote the construction of the credit system,” according to Beijing’s municipal website.
The government’s various agencies will link databases to get a full picture of every resident’s interactions across a broad range of services, including “market access, public services, tourism,” and “fields such as entrepreneurship and job hunting.”
By consolidating data collected by various departments, the government hopes to create a social credit system by which to judge the city’s residents.
Higher scores in the social credit program will land residents in the “green channel,” which offers various rewards, including expedited access to high-end schools and medical resources.
Beijing will judge every resident based on their behavior by the end of 2020 with “social credit” pic.twitter.com/oPVWrC4yGt
— TicToc by Bloomberg (@tictoc) November 24, 2018
However, the government is also improving and increasing its blacklist system.
Those who break the law or are deemed untrustworthy will be “limited everywhere,” and may have difficulty accessing resources.
This is just one step in China’s gradual build-up of its massive surveillance state.
Another Chinese city, Hangzhou, launched a similar program earlier this year, which blocked more than 11 million flights and 4 million high-speed train trips, according to Bloomberg.
Chinese surveillance and censorship is especially prevalent online. The Chinese government infamously banned Winnie the Pooh last year after Chinese President Xi Jinping was likened to the iconic character.
China’s spying doesn’t show any sign of stopping with big tech companies, like Google, seeming eager to meet China’s dystopian demands in exchange for access to their their lucrative market.
After China fully implements its surveillance programs, other countries might even be tempted to follow suit and spy on their own citizens.
Already, some Democrats are suggesting a government-run social credit program similar to China’s program.
The global trend of governments spying on their citizens is beginning to get out of hand.
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