China's Digital Dictatorship

China is building a digital dictatorship to exert control over its 1.4 billion citizens. For some, “social credit” will bring privileges — for others, punishment.

What may sound like a dystopian vision of the future is already happening in China. And it’s making and breaking lives.

The Communist Party calls it “social credit” and says it will be fully operational by 2020.
Within years, an official Party outline claims, it will “allow the trustworthy to roam freely under heaven while making it hard for the discredited to take a single step”.

The system will be enforced by the latest in high-tech surveillance systems as China pushes to become the world leader in artificial intelligence.

Surveillance cameras will be equipped with facial recognition, body scanning and geo-tracking to cast a constant gaze over every citizen.

Smartphone apps will also be used to collect data and monitor online behavior on a day-to-day basis.

Then, big data from more traditional sources like government records, including educational and medical, state security assessments and financial records, will be fed into individual scores.

If successful, it will be the world’s first digital dictatorship.  (ABC Australia, September 9, 2018)
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I previously discussed Life Inside China's Total Surveillance State in July 2018.

While China may be an extreme example of the surveillance state, many other governments seek this type of control over their populations. It is essential to personal freedom that we oppose all types of mass surveillance.