When Bentham Meets Big Data in Times of COVID-19

2022 ◽  
pp. 168-186
Author(s):  
Filiz Resuloğlu
Keyword(s):  
Big Data ◽  
Crisis Management ◽  
High Time ◽  
Risk Of Infection ◽  
Credit System ◽  
New Normal ◽  
Social Credit ◽  
Online Platforms ◽  
Governance Model ◽  
Short Time

2020 has been marked by a ‘once in a century crisis' that influenced the dynamics of the globe deeply. Soon after the COVID-19 pandemic, most daily practices had to be transferred to online platforms as humanity was supposed to adopt social and physical distancing to avoid the risk of infection. Even technologically illiterate people were abruptly charged with online tasks as part of their jobs or responsibilities. It suddenly turned out to be high time to go online and have a digital identity to keep pace with the new normal life. Thus, internet has taken its place among the basic needs more specifically than before. This chapter is about the technology-driven supervisory social credit system which is said to have contributed to Chinese state to manage the COVID-19 crisis in a short time. Exploring the foundations, motives, and highlights of the system, this chapter proposes a framework for a potential digital governance model coined as the Cyber Leviathan and bears importance in terms of crisis management.

scholarly journals From Bulletin Boards to Big Data

2021 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-62
Author(s):  
Christian Göbel ◽  
Jie Li
Keyword(s):  
Big Data ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Developmental Trajectory ◽  
Credit System ◽  
Feedback Systems ◽  
Social Credit ◽  
Bulletin Boards ◽  
Local Decision ◽  
Set Up

Why do Chinese governments at various levels set up public complaint websites where citizen petitions and government responses can be reviewed by the general public? We argue that it is the result of two factors: strong signals sent by the central government to improve governance, and the availability of new technologies to promote policy innovation. To impress their superiors, local officials adopted newly available commercial technology to innovate existing citizen feedback systems, which presented a developmental trajectory from “openness,” “integration,” to “big data-driven prediction.” Drawing on policy documents and interviews with local politicians and administrators, we provide a chronological perspective of how technical development, central government’s signals and local decision-making have interacted in the past two decades to bring forth today’s public complaint websites. The contingent and non-teleological nature of this development can also be applied to other policies such as the social credit system.

scholarly journals Give us a little social credit: to design or to discover personal ratings in the era of Big Data

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 369-387 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abigail Devereaux ◽  
Linan Peng
Keyword(s):  
Big Data ◽  
Credit Rating ◽  
Credit Ratings ◽  
Personal Characteristics ◽  
The State ◽  
State Council ◽  
Credit System ◽  
Personal Credit ◽  
Social Credit ◽  
Financial Credit

AbstractIn 2014, the State Council of the Chinese Communist Party announced the institution of a social credit system by 2020, a follow-up to a similar statement on the creation of a social credit system issued by the State Council in 2007. Social credit ratings of the type being developed by the State Council in partnership with Chinese companies go beyond existing financial credit ratings in an attempt to project less-tangible personal characteristics like trustworthiness, criminal tendencies, and group loyalty onto a single scale. The emergence of personal credit ratings is enabled by Big Data, automated decision-making processes, machine learning, and facial recognition technology. It is quite likely that various kinds of personal and social credit ratings shall become reality in the near future. We explore China's version of its social credit system so far, compare the welfare and epistemological qualities of an ecology of personal ratings emanating from polycentric sources versus a social credit rating, and discuss whether a social credit system in an ideologically driven state is less a tool to maximize social welfare through trustworthiness provision and more a method of preventing and punishing deviance from a set of party-held ideological values.

scholarly journals Unpacking China’s Social Credit System: Informatization, Regulatory Framework, and Market Dynamics

2020 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lianrui Jia
Keyword(s):  
Big Data ◽  
Population Analysis ◽  
Self Regulation ◽  
The Self ◽  
Internet Technology ◽  
Credit System ◽  
Social Credit ◽  
Internet Users ◽  
Regulatory Data

Background  China, with a population of 802 million internet users, a handful of the world’s largest internet companies, and an unfolding Social Credit System (SCS), is often criticized for exerting its data power to surveil and discipline its population. Analysis  This article first provides a historical and situated analysis of the SCS as a part of China’s informatization and datafication processes. It then highlights problems in the current legal and regulatory data-protection framework and discusses the self-regulation practices of the private sector. Conclusions and implications  Overall, this case study provides a historical and contextualized understanding of China’s SCS and related big data developments and assesses the implications of these development for the globalizing Chinese internet, technology companies and the Chinese public.Contexte  Avec une population de 802 million d’utilisateurs d’Internet, avec quelques des plus grandes sociétés Internet du monde, et une Système de Crédit Sociale (SCS) en pleine développement, La Chine est souvent critiqué pour utilizer son pouvoir de données pour surveiller et discipliner sa population. Analyse  Tout d’abord, cet article fournit une analyse historique et située de la SCS comme partie des processus de informatisation et datafication de la Chine. Ensuite, il souligne les problèmes du cadre juridique et régulatoire actuel en matière de protection des données et examine les pratiques d’autorégulation du secteur privé.Conclusions et implications  En global, cette étude de cas fournit une compréhension historique et contextualisée du SCS chinois et de l’évolution du Big Data, et évalue les implications de ce développement pour l’Internet chinois en pleine mondialisation, les entreprises technologiques et le public chinois.

Datafication, dataveillance, and the social credit system as China’s new normal

2019 ◽  
Vol 43 (6) ◽  
pp. 952-970 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claire Seungeun Lee
Keyword(s):  
Personal Narratives ◽  
Online Discussions ◽  
Data Driven ◽  
Credit System ◽  
New Normal ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Credit Score ◽  
Social Credit ◽  
The Social ◽  
Chinese State

Purpose The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to explore how China uses a social credit system as part of its “data-driven authoritarianism” policy; and second, to investigate how datafication, which is a method to legitimize data collection, and dataveillance, which is continuous surveillance through the use of data, offer the Chinese state a legitimate method of monitoring, surveilling and controlling citizens, businesses and society. Taken together, China’s social credit system is analyzed as an integrated tool for datafication, dataveillance and data-driven authoritarianism. Design/methodology/approach This study combines the personal narratives of 22 Chinese citizens with policy analyses, online discussions and media reports. The stories were collected using a scenario-based story completion method to understand the participants’ perceptions of the recently introduced social credit system in China. Findings China’s new social credit system, which turns both online and offline behaviors into a credit score through smartphone apps, creates a “new normal” way of life for Chinese citizens. This data-driven authoritarianism uses data and technology to enhance citizen surveillance. Interactions between individuals, technologies and information emerge from understanding the system as one that provides social goods, using technologies, and raising concerns of privacy, security and collectivity. An integrated critical perspective that incorporates the concepts of datafication and dataveillance enhances a general understanding of how data-driven authoritarianism develops through the social credit system. Originality/value This study builds upon an ongoing debate and an emerging body of literature on datafication, dataveillance and digital sociology while filling empirical gaps in the study of the global South. The Chinese social credit system has growing recognition and importance as both a governing tool and a part of everyday datafication and dataveillance processes. Thus, these phenomena necessitate discussion of its consequences for, and applications by, the Chinese state and businesses, as well as affected individuals’ efforts to adapt to the system.

scholarly journals Tackling Delinquency in the Era of Social Credit System: Prospects and Risks

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 282-294
Author(s):  
Roman Rouvinsky ◽  
Evgeny Tsarev
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Big Data ◽  
Social Control ◽  
Legal System ◽  
Data Analytics ◽  
Big Data Analytics ◽  
Legal Liability ◽  
Credit System ◽  
Social Credit ◽  
The Social

The paper is devoted to the changes in fighting delinquency connected to the application of artificial intelligence and Big Data analytics. The focus of the paper has been made on the Social Credit System and related advanced mechanisms of control and surveillance, which are currently being built and implemented in China. The issue of how the latest technologies of social control impact the fight against crimes and administrative offences has been examined. The transforming effect of introduction of the Social Credit System and algorithmic mechanisms of social control upon the legal system and some of its institutions (notably, the legal liability institution, the punishment, the concept of an offender) has been assessed in the paper. The authors come to the conclusion that the introduction of the Social Credit System in China and the development of algorithmic mechanisms of social control and crime prevention may lead to the separation of punishment from the construct of legal liability and the concept of an offence as a guilty deed.

scholarly journals From Datafication to Data State: Making Sense of China’s Social Credit System and Its Implications

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-35
Author(s):  
Anne S. Y. Cheung ◽  
Yongxi Chen
Keyword(s):  
Social Control ◽  
The State ◽  
Data Driven ◽  
Credit System ◽  
Multiple Functions ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
Social Credit ◽  
Governance Model ◽  
Democratic Societies ◽  
And Control

We live in an age of datafication wherein nearly all aspects of our lives can be transformed into data and evaluated. The authors seek to make sense of the heightened datafication-enabled social control under China’s Social Credit System (SCS) by developing the concept of the data state. A “data state” is defined as a governance model enabling the state to comprehensively monitor, evaluate, and control its subjects through datafication, leaving them little room to defend their autonomy. We identify the multiple functions of the SCS in its development up to 2020 and analyze its inherent defects, including the decontextualized evaluation of individuals and the semi-automated imposition of disproportionate punishment. We argue that, if the SCS were to fully integrate its functions and connect to other data-driven governance initiatives, it would eventually allow the data self, carefully groomed by the state, to dominate the bio-self and turn China into a data state. Whereas China’s SCS may be unique and not easily replicated elsewhere, understanding its intricacies helps to enable the citizens of democratic societies to guard against the relentless growth of datafication that may result in an invincible and irreversible ecosystem for the emergence of a data state.

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