- We all know that happiness in the world
is based on one thing:
your looks on a scale from one to 10.
But now, one country is messing
with a perfectly good system.
China.
The Chinese government does like the idea
of scoring people, but instead of looks,
like god intended, their score
is based on everything you do.
It's called your social credit score.
But how do you keep constant tabs
on a country with over a billion people?
Technology has the answer!
China's innovated a way of tracking people
by using facial recognition technology.
I keep trying to do more research
but I type in facial and then I get wildly sidetracked.
Yes, facial recognition.
Chinese officials want to use cameras
and software to score everyone's every move.
They say it can track your behavior
and even read your mood.
Here in Hong Kong, people have been
pushing back against the government a lot lately.
Paul Haswell is a technology lawyer here,
and we met on a park bench down by the docks
in full view of government cameras.
Oh, my opium's here!
I know there is cameras everywhere.
There's one there,
there,
there.
There's about a million over there.
Talk about what's happening in China
with the social credit score.
- By 2020, they're rolling out a system
where every single citizen in China
will have a score, a social credit score.
- So it's like your Uber number
but for everything.
- Yeah, judging how good you are
as a person.
Whether you got drunk in public,
you've jumped in a queue,
taken someone's chair on the train,
it's that sort of thing.
- But once you get a one-star rating,
you can never get it back.
- That's it, you're stuck.
- I think where I'm having a problem here
is that people are in trouble
for things that aren't illegal.
- Yeah, being a little bit naughty.
- Right.
- And then your score goes down low enough,
you can't get a plane ticket,
your kids can't go to the school
you want them to go to.
You might not be able to get a job
if your score's too low.
- Is that the whole public so, before I go
on a date with a girl could I check out
if she's a good person and vice versa.
- Yes, people will post them on dating apps,
this is how trustworthy I am so please date me.
- But women like a bad boy, they'd be like ooh,
he's probably been up to no good.
He's probably kicked a pregnant, disabled woman
out of her seat on a bus.
Is there a danger that you could be targeted
by a person and given a bad score?
And like if this person is reporting you
again and again and again.
- They frame you for something.
It's like there was an episode of Black Mirror
where people were being scored.
It's like someone saw that and thought,
this is a great idea.
- And who decides what are banned activities?
I've been drunk in public yesterday.
- Ultimately it will be whichever government
agency is in charge it will decide
what's good, and what's bad.
- Sending a dick pic?
- Probably bad.
- Yeah probably bad.
- What if you got a real nice looking dick though?
- Still, probably bad.
- Probably bad.
- The governments can only do this creepy stuff
because a bunch of tech geeks invented it.
I wanted to meet them but of course it's a hassle
just to walk in their front door.
(door buzzer)
What?
This is bullshit.
I'm at a company called Alcon.
They're inventing potentially world-
changing technology in this shitty
industrial building on Kin Fat Street.
Thank you for letting me into your evil lair.
It's not quite as sinister as I thought it would be.
Turns out getting in the door can be easy,
if you submit to being added to their database.
- Does it know that I'm hungover?
- What did the audio say?
So I can come into this place now because it
recognizes that it's me.
How accurate is this technology?
- At the moment it's almost 95% accurate.
- 95%, sounds pretty good.
But doesn't that mean that out of every 100
people, 5 people could get misidentified.
So out of a billion people that's potentially
50 million people who could be, as Confucius say,
f**ked!
Like what if I had an evil twin,
could they murder someone,
I'd get blamed?
- You can't rule out that possibility.
- What about like plastic surgery,
will that affect their facial recognition.
- It won't match.
- So it wouldn't have been able to tell
a young Michael Jackson
and an old Michael Jackson.
- That would be like two different faces.
- Scary stuff!
But who should really be worried
about this technology?
Probably protestors.
So I met up with two people
who have a history of doing just that.
Tao, a documentary filmmaker, and Ricky,
a social activist and passable
Asian John Lennon impersonator.
- What made you become an activist?
- I mean, personally, I don't want to be a slave.
- Right.
- And by 2020, there will be four billion CCTV
camera installed in every corner of China.
- Four billion?
- Big Brother is watching you.
- Yes
There's two cameras up there,
two up there.
Camera.
China is tightening its grip on Hong Kong.
And all summer, regular citizens
have launched massive protests.
What started as a fight against the Chinese
extradition law has exploded into a broader
backlash against the government.
And how many people attended this protest?
- More than a million people, young people.
- It probably f**ked traffic up, right?
All right, so, this is where the protest was here, right?
- [Tao] Yeah.
- [Ricky] On the road.
- [Jim] This bridge and the area around it
was packed with people.
But just imagine what a protest will look like
in a few years.
When there are so many cameras
it's impossible to dodge them.
The Chinese government could use facial recognition
to scan the entire crowd in real time.
That's not gonna be good for your score.
But unfortunately, just like lots of
tech companies in the U.S.,
the people creating the technology
don't seem super concerned
about how it might be used.
If people are protesting the government,
couldn't they just put a camera on everyone
and immediately put them on their databases?
- It's difficult to answer.
Technically it's probably not a problem to do.
It can be done.
- What's the worst thing that could happen with all this?
- Have you read the book "1984?"
George Orwell.
- I've seen the Apple commercial.
- Okay, that, that is
the worst thing that can happen.
And this isn't just applying to China,
this is everywhere.
If you have a technology that monitors people 24/7,
but also then rates them and controls
what they can do based on that monitoring,
then you can end up in a dystopia.
It's like the science fiction writer's dream.
- And he's right, it's not just China.
Facial recognition has already made it to America.
Amazon, despite concerns about accuracy,
sells facial recognition software to police departments.
It's in offices, airports, at concerts,
and lots of times we don't even know it's there.
Should Americans be paying attention to what's
happening here?
- Yes, there is very much a mentality with any technology,
that, well, that's interesting what's happening there,
thank goodness I'm not there.
And then it sneaks up on you.
In China, if you speak out against the government,
your score will go down.
You can see that being exported to other countries,
even the U.S. could start to go that way.
I'm sure Trump would like to have a system
where nobody can criticize him.
- Right.
All right, but luckily, we're not China.
I'm sure we have laws to regulate all this stuff.
- In the U.S. it's largely unregulated.
- F**k!
Well can we write some rules already?
And tech companies, just know, you'll never
be able to guess how I really feel inside.
What does your algorithm say just from my face?
- Oh, you look very angry.
- Have you ever heard the term "resting bitch face?"
- [Woman] Resting bitch face.
(laughs)