No, a China-style ‘Social Credit System’ is not being used in Australia

^{By Frank Algra-Maschio}

Conspiracy theorists on social media claim a China-style social credit system is being used in Australia.

One Instagram user claimed that CCTV cameras used at Sydney’s recent Mardi Gras parade signalled the implementation of a social credit score system.

A social credit system, as being trialled in some areas in China, involves people being rated on a points system where they are rewarded or penalised depending on their behaviour in society. 

The Instagram video states, “Australia’s social credit score system starts tonight at the Mardi Gras parade.”

It goes on to describe the CCTV technology deployed at the Mardi Gras, stating, “If you look angry, you’re going to get a bad score.”

Other users on Facebook have separately claimed that social credit has been “introduced” as Australians will require 100 points of identification to use social media, and that “the police will have access to all of your accounts including private messages”.

Social credit systems refer to a range of public and commercial programs that have emerged in China in recent years. Originally set up to rank trustworthy businesses and lenders in China, similar systems are being introduced to rate citizens in some regions.

The common thread of these systems is the use of data and public records to monitor and influence people’s activities through rewards or sanctions, based on their social credit score. 

For example, a local government social credit system in eastern Shandong awards residents a base 1,000 points, which can be boosted by donating blood or attracting investment to their city, while traffic offences and tax evasion result in the loss of points. 

Citizens must maintain a high score if they hope to be employed in public institutions or to receive public funding, amongst other activities.

The government of China announced a plan in 2014 to roll out a national social credit system, but it is unclear how widely it has been implemented.

Professor Lyria Bennet Moses, director of the UNSW Allens Hub for Technology, Law and Innovation, told RMIT FactLab in an email that there is no social credit system operating in Australia.

“The term ‘social credit’ is currently used primarily to refer to or compare against China’s social credit system. To the best of my knowledge, there is no social credit or social credit score system operating in Australia analogously to that operating in China,” she said. 

“The technology being discussed in association with Mardi Gras is very different from that associated with China’s social credit system,” she said.

The Instagram video which makes the claim about the technology used at Mardi Gras was posted by an account with 21.6k followers, and the video has been played over 38k times. The same video posted to Tik Tok has been played over 800k times.

A Facebook post repeats the claim, providing a screenshot of a Sydney Morning Herald article on the use of the technology at Mardi Gras and a Time article on the social credit system in China, with the caption, “Chinese social credit system has arrived in Australia. The end of freedom is on our doorstep....if we allow it.”

The Mardi Gras technology was operated by Dynamic Crowd Measurement (DCM), whose website states it uses CCTV for event crowd management.For example, the technology assesses a crowd’s mood through observing facial expressions, and measures crowd density and movement to identify surges. 

Chair of DCM, Professor Peter Leonard, told FactLab in an email that DCM’s technology ensured people’s safety without needing to collect any personal data.

“DCM technology was deployed to 15 temporary cameras at key intersections across Oxford Street to identify potential choke points along the parade route, identify and allocate appropriate resourcing to high impact areas, and ensure crowd safety,” he said.

“DCM technology relates to aggregated (statistical) behaviour of groups of people (crowds), not individuals in those crowds. DCM technology is therefore completely useless and unsuited to enable or support in any way a ‘social credit’ system or any other panopticon of mass surveillance and social control,” he said.

The other posts which claim that a social credit system has been implemented in Australia share a newsclip from a Today show segment which discusses the recommendations of a 2021 parliamentary inquiry into family, domestic and sexual violence.

The recommendations from the inquiry mentioned in the newsclip are that social media users should be required to provide 100 points of ID to access the social platforms, and that the government should legislate to enable police to access people's private messages on social media. However, these recommendations have not been implemented.

The government plan that the inquiry was convened to inform does not make a specific reference to the points discussed in the video.

No legislation or other measures under the previous or current government to implement these changes have been put forward.