Critical Analysis: Digital Identity and Surveillance in China

The concept of personal identity in China is largely determined by Confucian ideology. Today, such ideology is translated through a digitalised system solely employed by the big data collected through online and offline surveillance methods. Superficially promoting the sincerity and trustworthiness, the system quantifies people’s daily behaviours into points which are cumulated to ultimately provide each individual with a rating that becomes their ‘virtuous status’; It is non-voluntary where anybody in the country with an ID card is automatically included to the system.

Categorisatons are prescribed without people noticing. The project tackles the system by targeting the people at the very bottom of the category called the ‘blacklist’. It is a category created by the government initially to manage the high population of those who are ‘in-debt’. However, disagreements to government’s scheme, publishing active political statements online and any activities irrelevant to system’s objective but creating frictions with the government can also put one onto the blacklist.

Being blacklisted and having a low credit score is completely different. People not only have to suffer from erroneous social stigma, they are also isolated from the rest of the community for as long as their name is on the blacklist as all their access has been suspended. 

People won’t be notified when they’ve been blacklisted and are expected to find out naturally by attempting to make access to different needs such as applying for a bank loan, buying a train ticket or logging into social media accounts. Places of appeal is where blacklisted people can go to if they think they have been wrongfully blacklisted. However appeal application is only valid within two weeks after they have been blacklisted and more than 80% of the times people are left with no response.

Design Proposal: The Garden of Lost Opportunities

This proposal focuses on a satellite project situated opposite one of the five places of appeal in Beijing’s Feng Tai District. The design draws heavily on the concept of the Chinese garden, recognized as a secret enclosure with its own set of rules, independent from those governing the outside world.

The Garden of Lost Opportunities bridges an authorized institution and a more public garden. It includes its own data center, holding the same set of data on blacklisted individuals but for a completely different objective. Rather than creating an escape or hidden resistance, the project aims to embrace Laolai by existing within the system. Proposed and agreed upon by Beijing capital, it acts as an additional plugin into the Social Credit System. 

The Garden of Lost Opportunities is intended to reduce illegal dealings and markets that may arise from Laolai being banned from various accesses. This project extends the existing journey of Laolai, which typically ends at the court of appeal, where they go when they believe they have been wrongfully blacklisted.

The private data center functions as an alternative system embedded within the existing social credit system. It collects data on Laolai, which is projected during meetings with lost people, potential clients, potential investors, and affected family members. This approach aims to rebuild trust and provide a more humane interaction for those impacted by the blacklist system.