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China's New 'Social Credit Score' Law Means Full Access To Customer Data (insurancejournal.com)
AnonymousCube shares this quote about China's new 'Social Credit Score' law from an insurance industry magazine:
"Companies are also required to give government investigators complete access to their data if there is suspected wrong-doing, and Internet operators must cooperate in any national security or crime-related investigation."
Note that China has an extremely flexible definition of "national security". Additionally computer equipment will need to undergo mandatory certification, that could involve giving up source code, encryption keys, or even proprietary intellectual data, as Microsoft has been doing for some time.
The article suggests businesses like insurers "will likely see the cost of complying with this new action as a disincentive to conducting business in China."
Note that China has an extremely flexible definition of "national security". Additionally computer equipment will need to undergo mandatory certification, that could involve giving up source code, encryption keys, or even proprietary intellectual data, as Microsoft has been doing for some time.
The article suggests businesses like insurers "will likely see the cost of complying with this new action as a disincentive to conducting business in China."
Will the "free world" be next?
What cost? The companies shouldn't care one way or another. The "cost" will merely be passed on...
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Maybe only to snowflake internationalists that grew up in the west and simply assumed the US Constitution applies everywhere.
Newsflash: America is the biggest safe space there is. Everywhere else, it can get literally Orwellian.
I thought we liked China to treat their citizens like total shit, because we get cheap electronics that way.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
for a while there i thought it was Trump's suggestion.
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
If there was a smell sensor on my computer google would figure out how to use it too. They know everything.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Privacy will go. That's the inevitable future (you can say "inevitable" with Agent Smith accent).
The same wonderful combo: digital information that is not lost and Internet that spreads it freely faster than you can say "entropy" brings you newest Holliwood action masterpieces on the same day of premiere and it also will make _your_ information available to any suitable buyer.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
The article suggests businesses like insurers "will likely see the cost of complying with this new action as a disincentive to conducting business in China."
If there is profit to be made, they will do business in China, whatever the rules are. Remember Lenin's quote about capitalists ready to sell the rope that will be used to hang them?
I know it's behind a paywall, but the WSJ had a very interesting article about China's implementation of Social Credit:
China’s New Tool for Social Control: A Credit Rating for Everything
They are apparently having a significant amount of trouble actually implementing the system because of the sheer amount of data.
Apparently Ant (div of Alibaba) is playing a pretty big role in this, too:
A credit-scoring service by Alibaba affiliate Ant Financial Services—one of eight companies approved to pilot commercial experiments with social-credit scoring—assigns ratings based on information such as when customers shop online, what they buy and what phone they use. If users opt in, the score can also consider education levels and legal records. Perks in the past for getting high marks have included express security screening at the Beijing airport, part of an Ant agreement with the airport.
remove nospam. to email!
When the objective is clear, as in when your population haven't got basic appliances or sufficient housing, it's much more efficient to take an engineer's approach to the problem than allowing every tom dick and harry clutter up decision making with their combined ignorance and stupidity. Look at e.g. Singapore. Autocracy is what propelled it upwards out of the marsh it was in.
Also. successful companies don't operate by popular vote either.
There comes a point when the road ahead is less clear ... and there free societies have the advantage because they can afford to try everything and keep what is good.
I'm a big fan of China in many respects, and I think their central government very often get things right - more so than many in the West. But as many sincere fans, I am not just uncritically accepting everything they do as right. In this case I reserve judgement; many things depend on how this is implemented and how it is used.
In my view, it was always obvious that something like this must turn up at some point. The unregulated internet was a lot of fun in the early years, certainly, but it is no longer all that much fun - there are too many things going on that are anything but fun, quite frankly, with scams, false news, rumour mills, organised crime, bullying, people trafficking etc, and the genuinely good things are sometimes drowning in the effluence. So it has to come to an end in some way or other - things like censorship, lack of anonymity and social credit scores are attempts at hammering out some sort of "law in the Wild West" of the internet. I'm not sure they are all good, but eventually we will settle one something that most people will find acceptable, and which will be reasonably effective.
At then end of the day, the internet is a public space, ultimately paid for by "society": the physical infrastructure etc maybe be owned by companies of various sorts, but at the end of the day, their customers pay for it and it trickles down to us (that is the only part of "trickle down economics" that actually works: all expenses are ultimately paid by those at the bottom of the pyramid game). But that being the case, the rules have to be set in such a way that they are acceptable to most people, and most people prefer there to be limits for what you are allowed to do and say.