In China, citizens with a low social rating will be banned from traveling

In China, the system of restrictions and penalties tied to a large experiment to create a social rating continues to gain momentum. With its help, the country's authorities are going to assess citizens like banks with a credit history do, only on a larger scale.

This system creates a profile of each citizen, taking into account his credit history, past convictions, purchases, behavior in social networks and even social circle. Based on these data, a score of 350 to 950 points is given, which restricts or expands access to work, education, shopping and travel.

Source: Reuters

This time it became known that the authorities officially decided to restrict debtors in movement — both inside the country and abroad. Today, about 9 million Chinese cannot buy plane tickets. Another 3 million are banned from traveling business class on trains - not because they can't afford it, but because they once committed a crime. In one of the government documents concerning the law, the initiative was called "once unreliable, forever limited."

The restrictions will also affect people caught in forgery of documents or non—compliance with public order - for example, defiant behavior on board an airplane or even smoking on a train.

This way of dealing with debtors is part of an aggressive approach to maintaining social "reputation" in the country. For example, the authorities actively use public pressure on individuals: the national website of the database of debtors puts names on the list and makes it available for viewing by region. Often, local authorities, finding residents of their city or region on the list, post photos of debtors and their names in public places.

And recently, a court in Beijing asked a company specializing in cybersecurity to develop a technology in which a special note about an "unreliable" credit history would be attached to the debtor's mobile number. And so that when this person was called, a message was displayed on the screen: "This person owes money."

To date, there are cases when many who got on the list during travel or business trips simply could not return home. They were refused a ticket because their name had already been blacklisted. The human rights organization HRW cites the example of a lawyer named Li Shaolin, who, once on the list, remained two thousand kilometers from home. The crime attributed to him by the court is "insincere apologies."

The social rating system in China is planned to be fully deployed by 2020.