What kind of warning? And why for Americans, but not Canadians? Or Mexicans? I mean, after the headline, the article finally acknowledges that the chances of this happening in the US are “nil”.
This article is about as informative as the “random event in Egypt shows Americans the danger of Sharia law” articles some other news sources are fond of publishing.
You are mischaracterizing what the source (not the article’s author) said. The full quote was:
“China’s nightmarish Citizen Scores are a warning for Americans,” according to the ACLU’s Stanley. “The United States is a much different place than China, and the chances that our government will explicitly launch this kind of a program any time in the near future is nil, but there are consistent gravitational pulls toward this kind of behavior on the part of many public and private U.S. bureaucracies, and a very real danger that many of the dynamics we see in the Chinese system will emerge here over time.”
Clearly he is pointing out that while a state-run US equivalent is unlikely, similar private systems are plausible. Indeed, there is no way that we can know that the current credit bureau oligopoly has not already included these data in computing its credit scores, since its algorithms and their inputs are closely-guarded secrets and there is no way to appeal their outputs.
(And in a world where these scores are routinely used in situations that don’t involve the extension of credit in any way–for example, to screen renters or employees–and where governmentally-enforced rules such as lending standards incorporate these bureaus' algorithms by reference, the distinction between state and private action seems largely irrelevant here.)
It would help if it were explained how these “gravitational pulls” work. I think there’s quite the leap from target mailing coupons to pregnant women to Twitter followers determining your credit score.
Why would credit bureaus care? Would it improve accuracy? Or just to fuck with people?
The credit bureaus would dearly, dearly love to incorporate already existing info (like zip code!) but afaik are prohibited from doing so.
Can you cite a source? I have never heard that the credit bureaus are prohibited from using any data they like in the calculation of credit scores, nor can I imagine how such a prohibition could be meaningfully enforced since the formula is secret.
Credit bureaus are regulated by the CFPB (perhaps among a few other agencies as well). Some of the regs are encoded in law (Fair Credit Reporting Act, Equal Credit Opportunity Act) and others are delegated to them. http://www.consumerfinance.gov/regulations/ for your reading pleasure…
Yes, they could just be lying about the whole thing, but that just returns to the question of why. Either Experian is going to decide on their own to ding my score because I bought a video game (why?) or somebody with sufficient leverage will make them (who and why?).
While I’ll grant you that the headline was sensationalized, I’m glad I read the article - I had no idea such a system was being implemented (already implemented?) in China, and if nothing else I would rather know than not.
Oh, totally agreed. It’s a very interesting (is that the word?) story. I’d just prefer to read about it on a site less desperate for clicks (and therefore somewhat less willing to be a part of ACLU’s submarine PR campaign).
I think they actually underestimate the feasibility of establishing a system like that in the US. Things have been moving pretty quickly in that direction over the past decade, it really would not surprise me to see something like this happening in the US in the next 20 years.
That said, I do agree with you that the title is pretty clickbaity.
I wonder why, though. What’s the motive? The Chinese government has expressed a clear interest in “motivating” its citizens to behave in certain ways. American banks are driven by greed and profit, but are otherwise quite amoral about your life choices. What would compel them to care about these things?
Right, I don’t see any private US organization having a motive to do this; the conceivable scenario is the federal government. I don’t think it’s very likely in the short term, but a sense that “it couldn’t happen here” would be very dangerous; it’s a thing which needs to be taken seriously because of how horrifying it is and how easy it would be.
The specific examples that are used in the article seem unlikely. However, I could imagine credit card companies being motivated to mine social media for information in determining your credit score in a push to further reduce risk.
Europe is arguably ahead of us on privacy, with the “right to be forgotten” laws. Most of their readers are probably in the Anglosphere or Europe. Similarly, an article on the disaster of private health insurance or the lack of a federal PTO mandate would tend to focus on the U.S. rather than a developing-world country that also has those problems (and many others).
Europe definitely cares about privacy in a very different way than the US does. An NYT article yesterday casts the difference in the way that I’ve been thinking of it for a while: Europe understands that privacy violations can be a tool of serious oppression (as, of course, they were in WW2). The US sees privacy as a consumer protection topic. I do think both are valid and important.
What kind of warning? And why for Americans, but not Canadians? Or Mexicans? I mean, after the headline, the article finally acknowledges that the chances of this happening in the US are “nil”.
This article is about as informative as the “random event in Egypt shows Americans the danger of Sharia law” articles some other news sources are fond of publishing.
You are mischaracterizing what the source (not the article’s author) said. The full quote was:
Clearly he is pointing out that while a state-run US equivalent is unlikely, similar private systems are plausible. Indeed, there is no way that we can know that the current credit bureau oligopoly has not already included these data in computing its credit scores, since its algorithms and their inputs are closely-guarded secrets and there is no way to appeal their outputs.
(And in a world where these scores are routinely used in situations that don’t involve the extension of credit in any way–for example, to screen renters or employees–and where governmentally-enforced rules such as lending standards incorporate these bureaus' algorithms by reference, the distinction between state and private action seems largely irrelevant here.)
It would help if it were explained how these “gravitational pulls” work. I think there’s quite the leap from target mailing coupons to pregnant women to Twitter followers determining your credit score.
Why would credit bureaus care? Would it improve accuracy? Or just to fuck with people?
The credit bureaus would dearly, dearly love to incorporate already existing info (like zip code!) but afaik are prohibited from doing so.
Can you cite a source? I have never heard that the credit bureaus are prohibited from using any data they like in the calculation of credit scores, nor can I imagine how such a prohibition could be meaningfully enforced since the formula is secret.
Credit bureaus are regulated by the CFPB (perhaps among a few other agencies as well). Some of the regs are encoded in law (Fair Credit Reporting Act, Equal Credit Opportunity Act) and others are delegated to them. http://www.consumerfinance.gov/regulations/ for your reading pleasure…
Per http://www.myfico.com/CreditEducation/WhatsInYourScore.aspx and http://www.myfico.com/CreditEducation/FactsFallacies.aspx, they tell you 1) what’s in the score and 2) a few things that are specifically not. They don’t mention zip codes explicitly, but IIRC WaMu was taken to task for doing exactly that because it was a proxy for race.
Yes, they could just be lying about the whole thing, but that just returns to the question of why. Either Experian is going to decide on their own to ding my score because I bought a video game (why?) or somebody with sufficient leverage will make them (who and why?).
While I’ll grant you that the headline was sensationalized, I’m glad I read the article - I had no idea such a system was being implemented (already implemented?) in China, and if nothing else I would rather know than not.
Oh, totally agreed. It’s a very interesting (is that the word?) story. I’d just prefer to read about it on a site less desperate for clicks (and therefore somewhat less willing to be a part of ACLU’s submarine PR campaign).
I think they actually underestimate the feasibility of establishing a system like that in the US. Things have been moving pretty quickly in that direction over the past decade, it really would not surprise me to see something like this happening in the US in the next 20 years.
That said, I do agree with you that the title is pretty clickbaity.
I wonder why, though. What’s the motive? The Chinese government has expressed a clear interest in “motivating” its citizens to behave in certain ways. American banks are driven by greed and profit, but are otherwise quite amoral about your life choices. What would compel them to care about these things?
Right, I don’t see any private US organization having a motive to do this; the conceivable scenario is the federal government. I don’t think it’s very likely in the short term, but a sense that “it couldn’t happen here” would be very dangerous; it’s a thing which needs to be taken seriously because of how horrifying it is and how easy it would be.
The specific examples that are used in the article seem unlikely. However, I could imagine credit card companies being motivated to mine social media for information in determining your credit score in a push to further reduce risk.
Europe is arguably ahead of us on privacy, with the “right to be forgotten” laws. Most of their readers are probably in the Anglosphere or Europe. Similarly, an article on the disaster of private health insurance or the lack of a federal PTO mandate would tend to focus on the U.S. rather than a developing-world country that also has those problems (and many others).
Europe definitely cares about privacy in a very different way than the US does. An NYT article yesterday casts the difference in the way that I’ve been thinking of it for a while: Europe understands that privacy violations can be a tool of serious oppression (as, of course, they were in WW2). The US sees privacy as a consumer protection topic. I do think both are valid and important.