[More info is gradually emerging on China’s social networking dystopia. -e]

Where you go, what you buy, who you know, how many points are on your driving licence, how your pupils rate you. These are just a few of the measures which the Chinese government plans to use to give scores to all its citizens.

China’s Social Credit System (SCS) will come up with these ratings by linking up personal data held by banks, e-commerce sites and social media. The scores will serve not just to indicate an individual’s credit risk, but could be used by potential landlords, employers and even romantic partners to gauge an individual’s character.

“It isn’t just about financial creditworthiness,” says Rogier Creemers, who studies Chinese media policy and political change at the University of Oxford. “All that behaviour will be integrated into one comprehensive assessment of you as a person, which will then be used to make you eligible or ineligible for certain jobs, or social services.”

Inside China’s plan to give every citizen a character score | New Scientist