Chinese internet companies are battling it out to create credit ratings based not just on citizens’ finances but also their social networks, raising fears that Big Brother could take up residence in consumers’ wallets.

中国互联网企业正在展开激烈竞争，都力图建立一个不仅依据个人财务状况、也依据他们的社交网络使用记录来打分的信用评估系统，这引起了“老大哥”可能将主宰消费者钱包的担忧。

Sesame Credit and other credit rating systems are responding to a glaring need for a credit rating database in a country that has seen rapid growth in personal credit cards, mortgages and online payments systems. About a third of Chinese own credit cards, up from 15 per cent five years ago.

中国的个人信用卡、按揭贷款和在线支付系统迅猛增长，为此迫切需要建立一个信用评估数据库，芝麻信用(Sesame Credit)等个人征信系统应运而生。目前大约三分之一的中国人拥有信用卡，5年前这个比例是15%。

Pilot programmes have drawn on users’ social networks, purchasing behaviour and even time spent on the phone as proxies for creditworthiness, spurring American Civil Liberties Union policy analyst Jay Stanley to call the programme “nightmarish” and warn against its adoption in the US.

一些试运行系统把用户的社交网络、购买行为，甚至使用手机的时间长短作为信用评估指标。美国公民自由联盟(American Civil Liberties Union)的政策分析师杰伊斯坦利(Jay Stanley)称这些项目“像噩梦一般”，并警告美国国内不要采用这种做法。

However, in China, where civil rights lawyers are jailed, online postings censored and popular social networking apps such as WeChat monitored for politically sensitive content, citizens seem to have no such concerns. Rather they have turned to the internet in droves to brag about their high scores.

但在中国，一个民权律师被投入监狱、网络言论遭到审查、微信(WeChat)等热门社交媒体应用受到监控以过滤政治敏感内容的国家，人们似乎没有这种担忧。相反，他们竞相在网上炫耀自己的信用分。

“No one on earth can stop me now!” exulted Rongrong, an e-commerce seller from Hangzhou who regularly posts her credit scores online. Sesame Credit rated her 813 out of a possible score of 950, or “credit extremely good”.

“现在地球上没人能阻止我了！”杭州一个电商卖家Rongrong兴高采烈地说。她定期在网上公布自己的信用分。她的芝麻信用分是813分（最高分为950分），属于“信用极好”。

Early this year China’s central bank authorised eight companies to pilot credit ratings systems, setting the goal of creating a national system by 2020.

中国央行今年初授权8家机构试运行信用评估系统，目标是到2020年建成一个全国性评估系统。

The rival commercial ratings systems starting up now could set a precedent for how the national system functions.

现在开始运行的各个商业性评估系统，或许会为今后全国性系统的运行树立一个模板。

“It’s clear from the text that Chinese authorities don’t want a credit system that’s completely focused on finances; rather they paint the new system as a way of rewarding “sincerity” (and punishing insincerity) throughout society,” wrote Charlie Custer on tech blog Tech in Asia.

“显而易见，中国当局并不想要一个完全基于财务状况的信用评估系统；相反，他们把新系统描述为一种奖励‘诚信’（和惩罚虚假）的方式，”查理愠斯特(Charlie Custer)在科技博客Tech in Asia中写道。

Nonetheless, he said he had found no evidence for the ACLU’s assertion that a person’s political posts, or their friends’ political activity, was used in assessing credit scores.

根据美国公民自由联盟的说法，在中国，一个人在网上发表的政治言论、他的朋友从事的政治活动都会被用于评估信用分。卡斯特表示他没有发现支持这种说法的证据。

Some western companies are reportedly trying to develop a credit scoring model based on consumers’ social networks.

据报道，有些西方企业正试图开发基于消费者社交网络的信用评分模型。

Among the rival Chinese systems are Sesame Credit, which rates users partly on their purchases through Alibaba’s online payment system Alipay, and China Rapid Finance, which draws on big data scraped from Tencent, the Chinese internet and gaming company.

芝麻信用和信而富(China Rapid Finance)是中国个人信用评估公司中的两家，芝麻信用的一个评分依据是用户通过阿里巴巴(Alibaba)在线支付平台支付宝(Alipay)进行支付的购物行为，信而富则利用从中国互联网及游戏公司腾讯(Tencent)得来的大数据。

One credit rating system trialled by smartphone maker Xiaomi’s financial services arm gives Chinese teenagers a new excuse to be on the phone all the time. It assesses credit based on guidelines including the users’ finance record, use of Xiaomi apps and community forums, and “frequent use of Xiaomi phones”.

智能手机厂商小米(Xiaomi)旗下金融服务机构正在试验的一个信用评估系统，给了中国年轻人一个长时间使用手机的新借口。该系统评分所使用的参考标准，包括用户的财务纪录，对小米应用和社区论坛的使用情况，以及“使用小米手机的频率”。