美国国家公共电台 NPR What's Your 'Public Credit Score'? The Shanghai Government Can Tell You

 

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: 

Residents of Shanghai are trying to keep their city honest with the help of big brother. There's a new app that uses troves of data the government has collected on citizens and businesses, and they use it to rate how trustworthy they are. This comes as China is preparing to roll out a nationwide social credit system that's raised all kinds of concerns about privacy. Here's NPR's Rob Schmitz.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: (Foreign language spoken).

ROB SCHMITZ, BYLINE²: The Honest Shanghai app was announced over state-run television in November. It appeared during honesty week, a week-long celebration of virtuous³ behavior organized by Shanghai's government.

Here's how the app works. You sign up using your national ID number. The app uses facial recognition software to locate troves of your personal data collected by the government, and 24 hours later, you're given one of three public credit scores - very good, good or bad.

SHAO ZHIQING: (Through interpreter) We want to make Shanghai a global city of excellence⁴.

SCHMITZ: Shao Zhiqing is deputy director of Shanghai's Commission of Economy and Informatization, which oversees⁵ the Honest Shanghai app.

SHAO: (Through interpreter) Through this app, we hope our residents learn they'll be rewarded if they're honest. That will lead to a positive energy in society.

SCHMITZ: Shao says Honest Shanghai draws on 2,000 to 3,000 items of information collected from nearly 100 government entities⁶ to determine an individual's public credit score. A good score allows users to collect rewards, like discounted airline tickets. A bad score could lead to problems getting loans and getting seats on planes and trains. Shao says Honest Shanghai will someday search beyond government records for other personal data.

SHAO: (Through interpreter) The government is not omnipotent⁷. In order to give a well-rounded rating for each resident, we'll need to tap the market for data. We'll look to industry associations, private companies and social media.

SCHMITZ: Honest Shanghai is one of three dozen social credit systems run by local governments throughout China. They're part of a goal by China's central government to construct a nationwide social credit system by 2020. But skeptics wonder how far this will go before Honest Shanghai becomes paranoid Shanghai.

ZHU DAKE: (Through interpreter) The government asks people to be honest, but it excludes itself from such scrutiny⁸.

SCHMITZ: Zhu Dake is a humanities professor at Tongji University in Shanghai.

ZHU: (Through interpreter) The government should be watched as well, but who's watching them? Should we develop another app that allows us to monitor them? If we did, they'd accuse us of breaking the law.

SCHMITZ: Zhu says the unilateral grading from a nationwide social credit system could lead to what he calls credit totalitarianism.

ZHU: (Through interpreter) You're wrong if I say so. You have bad credit if I say so. Where will this lead? They could easily expand the criteria⁹ and start judging people on moral or ideological¹⁰ grounds. They're using modern technology to create a vision of Orwell's 1984.

SCHMITZ: I asked Shanghai city official Shao about this. He pointed¹¹ out that the app at this stage is completely voluntary. Plus...

SHAO: (Through interpreter) The government isn't rating people. It's done by a third party. We share government data and they decide what it means.

SCHMITZ: That third party is a software company named Zhengxin Fangsheng. A representative named Wu said his company wouldn't have worked on the Honest Shanghai app unless the government asked it to. So yes, Wu said, the government has every intention to rate its residents public credit. On Shanghai's streets, nobody I spoke¹ to had heard of the Honest Shanghai app, but everyone seemed to like the idea. Here's saleswoman Joyce Hu.

JOYCE HU: (Through interpreter) It sounds like it will help improve the quality of citizens in the long run. As long as it doesn't violate my privacy, I'm OK with it.

SCHMITZ: Down the road, 24-year-old Xuan Zixi had some questions about Shanghai's government prying¹² into his personal information.

XUAN ZIXI: (Through interpreter) Is it like what the American government does where they monitor what the citizens are doing all the time? It's like that, right?

SCHMITZ: As long as it's the Chinese government and not the NSA prying into his personal life, says Xuan, he trusts everything will be OK. Rob Schmitz, NPR News, Shanghai.

(SOUNDBITE OF HIROKI MIZUKAMI SONG, "HUMAN RACE")

1 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 virtuous   

adj.有品德的，善良的，贞洁的，有效力的

参考例句：

• She was such a virtuous woman that everybody respected her.她是个有道德的女性，人人都尊敬她。
• My uncle is always proud of having a virtuous wife.叔叔一直为娶到一位贤德的妻子而骄傲。

4 excellence   

n.优秀，杰出，(pl.)优点，美德

参考例句：

• His art has reached a high degree of excellence.他的艺术已达到炉火纯青的地步。
• My performance is far below excellence.我的表演离优秀还差得远呢。

5 oversees   

v.监督，监视( oversee的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• She oversees both the research and the manufacturing departments. 她既监督研究部门又监督生产部门。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The Department of Education oversees the federal programs dealing with education. 教育部监管处理教育的联邦程序。 来自互联网

6 entities   

实体对像； 实体，独立存在体，实际存在物( entity的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Our newspaper and our printing business form separate corporate entities. 我们的报纸和印刷业形成相对独立的企业实体。
• The North American continent is made up of three great structural entities. 北美大陆是由三个构造单元组成的。

7 omnipotent   

adj.全能的，万能的

参考例句：

• When we are omnipotent we shall have no more need of science.我们达到万能以后就不需要科学了。
• Money is not omnipotent,but we can't survive without money.金钱不是万能的，但是没有金钱我们却无法生存。

8 scrutiny   

n.详细检查，仔细观察

参考例句：

• His work looks all right,but it will not bear scrutiny.他的工作似乎很好，但是经不起仔细检查。
• Few wives in their forties can weather such a scrutiny.很少年过四十的妻子经得起这么仔细的观察。

9 criteria   

n.标准

参考例句：

• The main criterion is value for money.主要的标准是钱要用得划算。
• There are strict criteria for inclusion in the competition.参赛的标准很严格。

10 ideological   

a.意识形态的

参考例句：

• He always tries to link his study with his ideological problems. 他总是把学习和自己的思想问题联系起来。
• He helped me enormously with advice on how to do ideological work. 他告诉我怎样做思想工作，对我有很大帮助。

11 pointed   

adj.尖的，直截了当的

参考例句：

• He gave me a very sharp pointed pencil.他给我一支削得非常尖的铅笔。
• She wished to show Mrs.John Dashwood by this pointed invitation to her brother.她想通过对达茨伍德夫人提出直截了当的邀请向她的哥哥表示出来。

12 prying   

adj.爱打听的v.打听，刺探（他人的私事）( pry的现在分词 )；撬开

参考例句：

• I'm sick of you prying into my personal life! 我讨厌你刺探我的私生活！
• She is always prying into other people's affairs. 她总是打听别人的私事。 来自《简明英汉词典》