Alongside China’s, Which Social Credit Systems Are Developing?

Photo by Maxim Hopman

By the late 2010s, China’s “social credit system” (SCS) was increasingly viewed as a notorious government effort to monitor personal behavior, shape public conduct, and control access to services. While the system traces back to the 2000s, it was officially expanded and formalized in 2014.

For example, in 2019, mixed martial arts fighter Xu Xiaodong made headlines when his social credit score was lowered “for insulting tai chi grandmaster Chen Xiaowang,” according to Quartz...