Description
Social credit systems represent the ability to identify (mostly people but also some “things”) and track activities for purposes of grading behaviors and applying “social credit” scoring. A given grading/scoring methodology depends largely on social credit system objectives and metrics. However, most systems will have socially acceptable behavior at their core. This presents both a challenge and an opportunity for the social credit market as a combination of government, companies, and society as a whole must determine “good”, “bad”, and “marginal” behavior.
Social Credit Market Dynamics
Beginning as a trend largely orthogonal to public safety and homeland security concerns, the market for social credit system infrastructure will ultimately become a mainstream component of both business and public policy. This means that systems will ultimately be used for a variety of commerce and lifestyle related issues ranging from risk assessment (access to credit, financing fees, insurance, etc.) to accessibility within public places such as concerts, sporting events, and other assemblies. High social scoring individuals within the social credit market will be granted preferred access to both real and digital assets.
Social credit system infrastructure includes analog and digital surveillance, Internet enabled devices like smartphones, wearable devices, security systems sensor enabled physical objects, and surveillance devices that use biometrics and computer vision. Technologies include broadband wireless (WiFi, LTE, and 5G), IoT, AI algorithms and big data analytics platforms, processes, and procedures. While each of these systems has market value individually, and are deployed separately for various purposes, it is the convergence of these otherwise disparate technologies that will facilitate value within the social credit market. For example, combined AI and IoT ( AIoT market ) systems will be leveraged to identify important events that require immediate action versus those that are merely archived.
It is important to note that there is great overlap between the technologies used for social credit systems and other solutions such as public safety, homeland security, and smart cities applications of many types including smart transportation (highways and surface streets, parking, autonomous vehicles, etc.), intelligent buildings, environmental monitoring (light, temperature, pressure, etc.). Many of these infrastructure elements are already planned for smart cities implementations and will therefore be multi-purposed including support of the social credit market.
In terms of physical infrastructure, social credit systems will rely upon various forms of equipment and platforms including sensors, biometrics, cameras and other optical devices, computer vision systems and other advanced computing platforms. Cyber infrastructure includes platforms, devices, and software to support data processing and correlation with identity information, which shall leverage AI, IoT, and advanced data analytics. The main purpose for all the aforementioned infrastructure elements is to capture data, which must be stored and acted upon as appropriate.
At the heart of social credit systems are large-scale data repositories that may store virtually any type of data that may be correlated to or associate with citizens and businesses in terms of both identity and behaviors. This includes raw observational data as well as listings (white, gray, red, and black) and meta-data to tie together data elements and allow for ease of information queries. Without the use of AI and big data technology, it would be problematic to implement social credit market systems in a meaningful way as massive amounts of disparate data must be correlated.
Social Credit Market Report
This is the only report of its type to assess market opportunities for infrastructure support of the social credit market. The report evaluates market drivers, use cases, and consequential impacts/implications (both anticipated and likely unanticipated) for social credit market implementation and operation. The report also evaluates some of the leading companies that are anticipated to drive social credit market evolution. This report includes detailed quantitative analysis driven by market needs with forecasting for all major infrastructure elements from 2020 to 2025.
