From Datafication to Data State
Making Sense of China's Social Credit System and Its Implications
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 5779987 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Anne S Y Cheung (University of Hong Kong), Yongxi Chen (0000-0002-1047-7182, University of Hong Kong) |
| Year | 2021 |
| Volume | 47 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 1137-1171 |
| Publication date | 2021-12-09 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Law & Social Inquiry (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0897-6546 • E-ISSN: 1747-4469 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/lsi.2021.56 |
| OpenAlex | W4200007833 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 23 |
| References cited | 22 |
We live in an age of datafication wherein nearly all aspects of our lives can be transformed into data and evaluated. The authors seek to make sense of the heightened datafication-enabled social control under China's Social Credit System (SCS) by developing the concept of the data state. A "data state" is defined as a governance model enabling the state to comprehensively monitor, evaluate, and control its subjects through datafication, leaving them little room to defend their autonomy. We identify the multiple functions of the SCS in its development up to 2020 and analyze its inherent defects, including the decontextualized evaluation of individuals and the semi-automated imposition of disproportionate punishment. We argue that, if the SCS were to fully integrate its functions and connect to other data-driven governance initiatives, it would eventually allow the data self, carefully groomed by the state, to dominate the bio-self and turn China into a data state. Whereas China's SCS may be unique and not easily replicated elsewhere, understanding its intricacies helps to enable the citizens of democratic societies to guard against the relentless growth of datafication that may result in an invincible and irreversible ecosystem for the emergence of a data state
Data governance · Guard (computer science · China's Socioeconomic Reforms and Governance · Demographic Trends and Gender Preferences · Ethics and Social Impacts of AI
The social policy of a shortsighted state
Colouring outside the lines
On the transparency of the credit reporting system in China
Perceptions of social credit systems in Southeast Asia
The digital panopticon
Datafied Societies
Gov-tech as capture
Sociotechnical imaginaries shaping China’s emerging social credit system
Protecting society from itself
Hashtag activism and the sousveillance of China’s Social Credit System
The Geopolitical Shaping of Digital ID in Asia
Credit Is a Basket
The corporate cultivation of digital resignation in policymaking
Street-level bureaucracy meets Big Data
Data communism
Social media and the ordinary
Labor Market Reentry Among White-Collar Female Ex-Prisoners in China
Media framing and public support for China’s social credit system
La gouvernance de la « civilisation écologique » en Chine
Shaming the Untrustworthy and Paths to Relief in China’s Social Credit System
The politics of kinship
Variegated Platform Urbanism
Trusting by Numbers
Technology and Social Control
Metric Society
Multiple Social Credit Systems in China
China's Social Credit System
China's Social Credit System
Postscript on the Societies of Control
The digital persona and its application to data surveillance
Asia’s Covid-19 Lessons for the West
The Chinese Social Credit System
New Laws of Robotics
Learning Like a State
The surveillant assemblage
The grid management system in contemporary China
Surveillance Technology, Privacy and Social Control
A New Algorithmic Identity
Liquid Surveillance
Between Michel Foucault and Erving Goffman
| Unique citing works | 23 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 5,75 |
| Citation span | 2022 - 2026 (5) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 22 |