Big Brother is Watching and Controlling You

Abstract

This chapter examines how data-driven technologies are deployed as mass surveillance and social credit scoring in China and their threat to democracy. Over the last decade, China has put in place a state-sponsored system of mass automated surveillance. It has successfully managed to limit the Internet to state-approved websites, apps, and social media, corralling users into a monitored, non-anonymous environment and preventing access to overseas media and information. From December of 2019, all mobile phone users registering new SIM cards must agree to a facial recognition scan to prove their identity. The state has also facilitated the transition from anonymous cash to traceable digital transactions. Most significantly, the state has created a social credit scoring system that pulls together various forms of data into a historical archive and uses it to assign each citizen and company a set of scores that affects their lifestyles and ability to trade. On the one hand, this is about making the credit information publicly accessible, so that those who are deemed untrustworthy are publicly shamed and lose their reputation. On the other hand, it is about guilt-by-association and administering collective punishment. This sociality works to minimize protest and unrest and reinforce the logic of the system.