As the list of behaviors covered by China’s social credit systems continues to expand, more voices are sounding the alarm about the lack of laws governing these systems.
State-run Legal Daily published a report saying some places are starting to show signs that punishments for “uncreditworthy” behavior are being abused or applied too broadly. According to the report, titled “What kind of social credit law do we need,” a law professor at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou said the social credit system has to be connected with China’s current legal framework or it could damage the legal environment.
China has official guidelines for building its social credit system. The country aims to have a social credit system covering the whole country by 2020, but right now it mostly consists of several local systems with their own punishments and rewards. But there’s currently no legal framework for these systems. Some local systems have added blood donation, jaywalking and eating on the subway to lists of behaviors that could affect people's scores, but some of the initiatives face pushback online.