China's social credit score bans some from travel

by 2020 China plans to give all of its 1.4 billion citizens a personal score based on how they behave so some people with low scores are already already being pushed if they want already being punished rather if they want to travel nearly 11 million Chinese people can no longer fly and 4 million are barred from trains next week the program will start expanding Nationwide Ben Tracy is in China with what's behind the government scoring system Ben this sounds like scary stuff good morning good morning the government here says it is trying to purify Society by rewarding those who are trustworthy and punishing those who are not so like the credit score that most Americans get for how they handle their finances Chinese citizens are now getting social credit scores based on everything from whether they pay their taxes on time to how they cross the street when Leo who recently tried to book a flight he was told he was banned from flying because he's on the list of untrustworthy people Leo was a journalist who was ordered by a court to apologize for a series of tweets he wrote and was then told his apology was insincere I can't buy property my child can't go to private school he says you feel you're being controlled by the list all the time and the list is now getting longer as every Chinese citizen is being assigned a social credit score a fluctuating rating based on a range of behaviors it's believed that community service and buying chinese-made products can raise your score fraud tax evasion and smoking in non-smoking areas can drop it if a score gets too low a person can be banned from buying plane and train tickets real estate cars and even high-speed internet it's a good thing this woman says there should be punishment for people who can't behave China's growing network of surveillance cameras makes all of this possible the country already has an estimated 176 million cameras and it plans to have more than 600 million installed by 2020. it can recognize more than 4 000 Vehicles shoe Lee is the CEO of sense time one of China's most successful artificial intelligence companies it has created smart cameras for the government that can help catch criminals but also track average citizens this knows every person every bike every car every bus you can tell whether it is an adult a child a male or female in several big cities in China including here in Shanghai the government is even tracking jaywalkers cameras record them going through intersections zero in on their face and then publicly shame them on nearby video screens can moskin has studied China's economic and political culture for more than three decades he says how the new scoring system truly works is kept secret and could be easily abused by the government how far into people's daily mundane activities does this go well I think that the government and the people running the plan would like to go as deeply as possible to determine how to allocate benefits and also how to impact and shape their behavior now there are upsides for people the Chinese government considers trustworthy they can actually get better interest rates at Banks they can get discounts on their energy bills and China's largest online dating site reportedly even boosts the profiles of people with high social credit scores Nora incredible then Tracy in Beijing thank you it's the ultimate version of Big Brothers watching no thanks yeah yeah own chilling yeah I think so too imagine that I mean we do have in major cities we do have cameras everywhere yeah but if you're jaywalkings were marking you down right you're jaywalking I still expect to be able to fly yeah so don't take that away or allow your kid to go to private yes yes that's a great great story to see what's happening there thank you Ben

Channel: CBS Mornings

Views: 161,757

Keywords: CBS News, CBS This Morning, China, social score, behavior, punishment

Id: xuqbx8tyW1Y

Length: 3min 59sec (239 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 24 2018