Impact of Social Credit Systems

What they call the social credit system.

If any of these family photos, if any of your activities online, if

your purchases, if your associations, if your friends are in any way

different from what the government or the powers that be of the moment would

like

them to be, you're no longer able to purchase train

tickets.

You're no longer able to board an airplane.

You may not be able to get a passport. You may not be eligible for a job.

You might not be able to work for the government.

All of these things are increasingly being created

and programmed and

decided by algorithms, and those algorithms are fueled

by precisely the innocent data that our devices are

creating all of the time, constantly, invisibly, quietly, right now.

Our devices are casting all of these records that we do not

see being created that in aggregate seem very innocent.

You were at Starbucks at this time. You went to the hospital afterwards.

You spent a long time at the hospital.

After you left the hospital, you made a phone call.

You made a phone call to your mother.

You talked to her until the middle of the night.

The hospital was an oncology clinic.

Even if you can't see the content of these communications, the

activity records, what the government calls metadata,

which they argue

they do not need a warrant to collect, tells the

whole story. And these activity records

are being created and

shared and collected and intercepted constantly by companies

and

governments. And ultimately, it means as they sell these, as

they trade these, as they make their businesses on the backs

of these records,

what they are selling is not information.

What they are selling is us. They're selling our future.

They're selling our past. They are selling our history, our identity,

and ultimately, they are stealing our power and making our

stories work for them.