Some people in China can no longer buy airline tickets or stay in a hotel because of what a centralized database says about them.
And they are being publicly shamed on massive billboards because a judge gave the okay.
Is this how Big Data was meant to be used?
According to China's National Development and Reform Commission, it sure is.
Naked Security reports on the public shaming and blackballing effort that is part of China's "social credit score" system:
One of the many repercussions of such a system is that people get blacklisted for not paying off their debts when a court thinks they’re capable of doing so, regardless of what the debtor says.
The ID photos, names and numbers of blacklisted people are displayed on billboards throughout the city, and they’re then barred from booking flights or high-speed trains (considered “luxury” travel) and blocked from staying in hotels. By the end of May, people with bad credit in China had been blocked from booking more than 11 million flights and 4 million high-speed train trips, according to the National Development and Reform Commission.
