Sesame Credit

Sesame Credit, also known as Zhima Credit, is a private credit scoring and loyalty program system developed by Ant Financial Services Group (AFSG), an affiliate of the Chinese Alibaba Group. It uses data from Alibaba's services to compile its score. Customers receive a score based on a variety of factors based on social media interactions and purchases carried out on Alibaba Group websites or paid for using its affiliate Ant Financial's Alipay mobile wallet. The rewards of having a high score include easier access to loans from Ant Financial and having a more trustworthy profile on e-commerce sites within the Alibaba Group. [1][2]

History

Sesame Credit was introduced on 28 January 2015. It claimed to be the first credit agency in China to use a score system for individual users, using both online and offline information.[3]

Usage

Baihe.com, a Chinese matchmaking company, uses Sesame Credit data as part of its service.[4]

Sesame Credit's scoring system is roughly modeled after FICO scoring in the United States and Schufa in Germany.[5]

Technology platform

In 2015, Sesame Credit published information on the methodology behind its currently running beta version.

Sesame Credit's scoring system is roughly modeled after FICO scoring in the United States and Schufa in Germany.[6][3]

Data collection

The corporate network of Sesame Credit, led by the Alibaba Group, spans over insurance, loan, historical payment, dating, shopping and mobility data.[7] It collects data from all sources by utilizing the regulatory freedom it built from objects and social networks, public and private institutions and offline and online. The system is powered by "data from more than 300 million real-name registered users and 37 million small businesses that buy and sell on Alibaba Group marketplaces". Due to Sesame Credit’s close collaboration with the government, it also has access to all public documents, such as official identity and financial records.[3]

Further, this also includes all information that the Chinese government is collecting under its data protection regulation, which requires businesses to turn over their data [8]. For example, the government already has access to the messages of WeChat’s 850 million active users, China’s most popular communication application.[8] Thus, China can already access monitor most social and object data of its citizens on a continuous basis.

Data distribution

Sesame Credit emphasizes its strict privacy and data protection, ensured through encryption and segregation.[3] The firm also states that data is only gathered upon knowledge and consent of the user.[3] According to Ant Financial, users’ scores can currently only be shared with their authorization or by themselves.[3]

Data Structure

Big data and behavioral analytics are building blocks for the system. Data fragments are classified into five categories:[3][7]

  • Credit History: Reflects users’ past payment history and level of debt
  • Fulfillment Capacity: Shows users’ ability to fulfill contract obligations
  • Personal Characteristics: Examine the extent and accuracy of personal information
  • Behavior and Preferences: Reveal users’ online behavior
  • Interpersonal Relationships: Reflect the online characteristics of a users’ friends

The specifications of the algorithm that determine the classification, as well as the analytical parameters and indicators remain confidential.[3] It is unclear is whether data is structured to build in tolerances for errors, for example the likelihood of a piece of data being fake news or from an unreliable sources.[3][7]

Data visualization

The five categories that Sesame Credit classifies its data into, have different weightings attached to them. [3] Based on those, an algorithm determines a citizen's final citizen score, ranked among others. [3] The scores in the ranking range from 350 (lowest trustworthiness) to 950 (highest trustworthiness). [3] From 600 up, one can gain privileges, while lower scorers will revoke them.[7] According to current plans, the final score and ranking will be publicly available.[7]

Relation to Social Credit System

The Social Credit System introduced by the Chinese government is a separate system. However, AFSG is a technology partner to the government project.

In November 2017, Sesame Credit's general manager, Hu Tao, stated that no Sesame Credit data is shared with the Chinese government or other third parties without a user's consent. He also denied the company monitors social media content, or any other method, to assess a customer's 'qualitative characteristics' for Sesame Credit.[9]

See also

  • Tencent - also ofter credit scoring system

References

  1. ↑ "China might use data to create a score for each citizen based on how trustworthy they are". Business Insider. Retrieved 15 December 2017.
  2. ↑ https://www.chinalawtranslate.com/seeing-chinese-social-credit-through-a-glass-darkly/?lang=en
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 "Ant Financial Unveils China's First Credit-Scoring System Using Online Data". Ant Financial. 28 January 2015. Retrieved 30 May 2018.
  4. ↑ Hatton, Celia. "China 'social credit': Beijing sets up huge system". BBC News. Retrieved 2015-12-23.
  5. ↑ Ohlberg, Mareike; Ahmed, Shazeda; Lan, Bertram (12 December 2017). "Central Planning, Local Experiments: The complex implementation of China's Social Credit System" (PDF). Merics China Monitor. Mercator Institute for China Studies: 12. Retrieved 16 March 2018.
  6. ↑ Ohlberg, Mareike; Ahmed, Shazeda; Lan, Bertram (12 December 2017). "Central Planning, Local Experiments: The complex implementation of China's Social Credit System" (PDF). Merics China Monitor. Mercator Institute for China Studies: 12. Retrieved 16 March 2018.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 Botsman, Rachel (2017). Who Can You Trust? How Technology Brought Us Together – and Why It Could Drive Us Apart. London, UK: Portfolio Penguin.
  8. 1 2 Huang, Paul (13 September 2017). "WeChat Confirms: It Shares Just About All Private Data With the Chinese Regime". The Epoch Times. Retrieved 30 May 2018.
  9. ↑ https://www.ft.com/content/ec4a2a46-c577-11e7-a1d2-6786f39ef675


This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.