2020 gives birth to the unified “Social Credit System” in China. Before it becomes pandemic, I explain why Data Science can’t judge humans.
2020 will go down in history as the year of Covid-19. But another event could impact society even more: the final phase of the “Social Credit System” implementation in China.
I am going to share with you some of my thoughts on the topic, from a Data perspective. And I want also to raise some questions in particular (but not only) for Data Scientists.
Why do we care about the Chinese case? Because it is the first ever created in human history with such an invasive power. But any other country in the world could adopt it at some point.
Just a lexical note: in this post, I will call “Data Science” anything that concerns data handling.
What is the Chinese “Social Credit System”
In short, the Social Credit System is a method that aims to evaluate each citizen and business, by establishing a numerical score. Based on the score several mechanisms of reward and punishment can be decided for each individual: access to education, travel ban, access to bank loans, job opportunities, etc.
The scores are calculated based on individual social, financial, judicial, and ideological behaviors. That’s important…
