The other day I was watching some travel series of a Dutch dude who was travelling through China and making a documentary about that. He has different themes every episode and the theme of this particul episode is security in China.
As this Dutch dude speaks excellent madarin he is capable of having a bit more discussion about the Chinese security in general although not many people are willing to answer him about this theme.
Once he travels more South to Hong Kong and Macau, which are still independent parts falling under the wings of China, he is getting signs of what is happening in this particular topic regarding how widespread the controlling of the system is.
knack.be
One of the things he encounters is facial recognition which ofcourse is already used everywhere, but here you can actually see how good it works. Now this does have good aspects to it, as one of these guys also says:
'If you have nothing to hide, then you have nothing to be worries about'
But reality ofcourse is a bit different as the exact same example in this series continues. So what is being tested is an intersection crossing with cameras on there. Once you cross a red light your face will be recognized and you be recorded. After 5 recordings of bad behavior you will enter the Chinese creditsystem and privileges will be taken from you....
.... Let that sink in for a second....
So my maybe too fast conclusion is that if you make 5 crossings through red lights (Which I guess I would do in about a week of time), your social credits will be gone, and you might end up having trouble getting a morgage, or the ability to travel through the country, or getting an insurance for something. All of that because of these 5 red crossings.
What I am curious about is if you are also able to make these social credits able to come back again, by maybe doing community work. Or do you even have the option to defend yourself and say that it wasn't you who was crossing. Or this is just taken for a fact, and that is it.
This is scary shit but apparently part of the new world.
But doesn't this all make you think back to the 'Black Mirror' episode called 'Nosedive'? Where the whole world ranks each other based on how friendly the conversation was, and when you are not friendly enough you only get 1 star. Lower star rating is not getting a mortgage anymore, or not having the ability to book a hotel on the road.
Remember this episode?
Isn't this situation here 'Nosedive' in the making? That is seen what you do and privileges are based on that? All of this keeping up the appearance of being a good citizen because otherwise your rating will drop?
Or maybe am I seeing this all a bit too much a concerned human and is this just we way society is going. I don't see myself much as a conspiracy kind of person, but I do find this all next level, and these things make me want to disappear to a tropical island again haha.
Anyone know more about this?