Citizen scoring as a mass surveillance system

Citizen scoring as a social credit system is not a new reality. For instance, China has developed several national blacklists many years now, while the United States has blacklisted three companies and four branches of China’s National Supercomputing Center since April 2021.

   Worldwide, many countries have lists under this scoring scheme. Lists refer to debtors, overall credit profiles, people who defaulted on court fines, low trustworthiness, inappropriate behavior, identification cards, and other sensitive data. What the price for it? Minimum or even zero private data protection. If you do not want to follow the rules then you can face travel bans, exclusion from a variety of social groups, social benefits, employment exclusion, negative social status, and general an environment in which you cannot develop your life.

   Recently, in a draft report adopted with 36 votes to 24, and 6 abstentions, members of the European parliament highlight the demand for human oversight of artificial intelligent systems, open algorithms, and public audits. At the same time, they ban private facial recognition databases, behavioral policing, and citizen scoring. Also, automated recognition-based systems should not be used for border control.

   Therefore, parliament members worry that the use of AI systems in policing could potentially lead to mass surveillance. This means that key EU principles of proportionality and necessity cannot be followed anymore, due to the mass surveillance. This triggers a variety of ethical dimensions, and people must adhere to policies that protect human beings.