All posts by Darron Tang

Britizen Score

Britizen Score

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A user’s Britizen score is made up of several factors, these factors include:

  • Your friend’s scores and groups scores
  • Normal credit check
  • Criminal Record
  • Post history
  • Employment

Your friend’s scores and groups scores

This part of one’s score are the networks in which the user is a part of, the higher score of the networks such as friend’s and group’s the higher their own personal score. Having this as part of a personal score will encourage users to apply pressure on their networks to improve their scores as it directly affects one’s own score. This could potentially lead to ostracising friend’s with low scores in the most extreme cases.

Normal credit check

This credit check will be performed via a third party company such as Experian[1] and will be a measure of how likely a person is able to pay their bills. This will promote users trusting other users with high scores as they are more confident when lending money or favours.

Criminal Record

Having one’s criminal record be a part of their score will encourage users not to commit crimes as this will have an even greater damaging affect on their reputation if it is on show via their Britizen score.

Post History

Users who make posts on Britizen which promote British values will be given higher scores. Users who post material which do not agree with British values will be penalised in their score.

Employment History

A user’s employment history will affect one’s score, this will encourage users to obtain better jobs as the bonus for employment can be tailored specific to jobs which the country currently needs, for example the NHS is currently understaffed, therefore doctors and nurses could receive larger Britizen score bonuses, hopefully encouraging more users to become doctors or nurses.

 

 

[1] http://www.experian.co.uk/

News

Related Links

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Extra Credits Sesame Credit:

This Extra Credits video highlighted many of the potential dangers of utilising gamification for propaganda purposes. Many of the possible scenarios talked about in the video are worst case what if scenarios based on abusing the Sesame Credit system made when Sesame Credit was relatively new when accurate information about the workings of Sesame Credit were unavailable due to both state controlled information from China’s side as well as western fear. This is relevant to Britizen as it brought the group’s attention to Sesame Credit and inspired Britizen.

 

Black Mirror Season 3 episode 1 “Nosedive”:

Black Mirror is a dystopian television series which focuses on the potential moral dilemmas posed when technology advances within the near future. This episode focuses on a world where everyone has a social credit score where people can rate each other. The episode looks at what this sort of world might look like by focuses on one woman’s quest to raise her score and the consequences when it goes wrong. This is relevant to britizen as it looks very strongly at the social effects of everyone owning a credit score including how people may become more ingenious solely to raise their score.

 

BBC News: China ‘social credit’: Beijing sets up huge system

The BBC have written a good article describing what Sesame Credit is and how social trustworthiness is seen as less of a private matter with millions of users providing their credit score on their dating profile. The BBC provides a balanced neutral view of Sesame Credit.

 

All Chinese citizens now have a score based on how well we live, and mine sucks

Written by a chinese citizen who actually owns a Sesame Credit score this article provides first hand evidence of how Sesame Credit works. It was surprising to see that Sesame Credit was less about controlling what it’s user’s share and more about being used as a purely financial score based off people’s abilities to pay. The article goes on to say how Sesame Credit distinctly doesn’t look at specific item purchases when determining scores but it does look at frequency. The article describes Sesame Credit as the Chinese Government’s way of improving consumerism.

 

American Civil Liberties Union: China’s Nightmarish Citizen Scores Are a Warning For Americans

The American Civil Liberties Union paints a far more bleak outlook towards Sesame Credit similarly to Extra Credits. Also they have a disclaimer similarly to Extra Credits that they don’t know how trustworthy they sources are.

Measuring Credit: How Baidu, Alibaba And Tencent May Succeed Where Facebook Failed

Forbes discusses Facebook’s previous attempt at social credit scores in comparison to Chinese attempts and highlights the differences between the US and Chinese market. It stresses how there is more demand in China for a credit score to encourage lending whereas in the US there exists credit systems already. Facebook also closed their credit system highlighting regulatory and consumer concerns.

 

Sesame Credit HomePage

 

Requirements

Requirements

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In this post we describe the main functional and non-functional requirements of Britizen Project. We generated this list of requirements from our user stories and personas. At the end of the post, we also include some other side ideas that we consider that can be potentially applied in the future, as well as others that we discarded due to ethical or technical reasons.

Functional Requirements:

  • The system must produce a citizen score for each citizen and will be based on:
    • Your friend’s scores and groups scores
    • Normal credit check
    • Criminal Record
    • Post history
    • Employment
  • The system will also produce scores for the groups people join these will be based on
    • Average Score of people within the group
  • The system shall provide suggestions/opportunities to raise your score
  • The system must allow users to share their score with others
  • The system will require a national insurance number needed to create account
  • The system will provide incentives to those at certain scores
    • Tax reduction
    • Government Housing priority
    • Discount vouchers to British services – British Companies/TV license
    • National Rail
    • Other business incentives
  • The system will make use of gamification through:
    • Tiers
    • The score itself
  • The system will provide a news feed with which users can post stories too similar to facebook

 

Non-Functional Requirements:

  • The system must be responsive
  • The system must be able to be used on mobile and PC
  • The system must be intuitive to use
  • The system must require no training
  • The system must be secure
  • The system must have accessibility options
  • A user’s score must be transparent and as close to reality as possible

 

Potential Ideas:

  • Purchase History, if we can figure out how to get the data
  • Facebook integration, probably not due to this being a government system

 

Bad Ideas:

  • Basing off benefits
  • Priority ambulance services
  • Basing off religious background

 

Scenarios and Personas

Personas

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Persona: Young person

Fictional Name: Liam Blake

YoungStudent

Job Title: Student

Demographics:

  • 17 years old
  • Single
  • Doing well in his A-Levels

Goals and tasks:

  • Liam aims to do well in his A-Levels so he can get into a good University
  • Liam enjoys socialising with his friends both in person and online

Technical Competency:

  • Liam is very comfortable using a computer and internet as well as a smartphone

Use Case Story:

Liam has a relatively high Britizen score for someone his age and is a part of his school’s Britizen group. He enjoys comparing his Britizen score with his many friends and the gamification elements of Britizen. He actively takes on many of the suggestions Britizen makes that he could raise his score with such as joining sport teams, choosing to purchase items from British shops, Liam mainly uses his smartphone to use Britizen via the app.

 

Persona: Mother

Fictional Name: Lydia Smith

Mother

Job Title: Nurse

Demographics:

  • 30 years old
  • Married
  • One child
  • Has a BN nursing degree

Goals and Tasks:

  • Raising her daughter
  • Caring for patients including giving them medicine
  • Helping her husband clean the house and cook
  • Saving money for a holiday

Technical Competency:

  • Lydia is good at using a computer and smartphone to access the internet

Use Case Story:

Lydia enjoys using Britizen for the financial rewards such as tesco vouchers to help save money for her family. She checks Britizen daily on a web browser and occasionally reads the articles suggested to her by Britizen. Lydia is only connected to a few friends on Britizen and is not too concerned about other people’s scores.

 

Persona: Digitally Illiterate Older citizen

Fictional Name: Graham Ramsay

RetiredMale

Job Title: Retired

Demographics:

  • 70 Years old
  • Married
  • 2 Children, 3 grandchildren
  • Secondary Education

Goals and Tasks:

  • Assisting raising Grandchildren
  • Socialising with friends

Technical Competency:

  • Has a mild understanding of computers, does not use a smart phone.

Use Case Story:

Graham does not regularly use the internet and so in order to set up his Britizen account he went to the local library and asked for assistance to use one of their computers. He has a medium Britizen score as he does not spend much money on British goods however he wants to raise his score as he understands that his score affects his children’s scores and wants to help them get benefits.

Persona: Young Professional

Fictional Name: Lisa Chun

YoungProfessional

Job Title: Junior Solicitor

Demographics:

  • 24 Years Old
  • Single
  • LLB Bachelor of Law

Goals and Tasks:

  • Advise and assist people on legal matters
  • Conduct research on legal matters
  • Negotiate with agencies
  • Wants to ascend the company ladder

Technical Competency:

  • Lisa is very comfortable using a computer and smartphone, they are a big part of her personal and work life

Use Case Story:

Lisa uses Britizen regularly on both mobile and web and has a high score. She uses Britizen to check her score as well as her friends’ and has in the past unfriended people with low scores. She is seeking a mortgage on a house and thus wants to raise her score as much as possible in order to be eligible for a cheaper mortgage.

 

 

Persona: Digital Inequality

Fictional Name: Richard Ackroyd

digialilliterate

Job Title: Custodian

Demographics:

  • 32 Years Old
  • Secondary Education
  • Single

Goals and Tasks:

  • Clean building floors by mopping and vacuuming
  • Collect and empty rubbish bins
  • Ensure cleaning product stock room is up to date
  • Finish plumbing qualification so he can start his own plumbing business

Technical Competency:

  • Richard has an older phone just for calls and texts, he knows how to use a computer however does not own one

Use Case Story:

  • Richard has a low-medium credit score on Britizen as he occasionally is behind in paying bills. He accesses Britizen via computers provided by the school he works at. Richard wants to raise his Britizen score in order to assist in being approved for a loan to start a plumbing business when he becomes accredited.
Introduction

Welcome to Britizen

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Welcome to our blog for COMP6217 Science of Online Social Networks!

We are Darron Tang, Sue Breeze, Travis Ralph-Donaldson and Luis Cayola Pérez, and together we conform “The Britizens”!

Our project is Britizen, a social network designed to give every UK national a citizen score which reflects how trustworthy of  a citizen they are. It is an exploration into how social networks can be used for propaganda with inspiration from the existing Chinese system Sesame Credit. Sesame Credit is a credit score owned by Alibaba which looks at various aspects of an individual including purchase history, friend network, credit card and bill payment history and household status. Sesame Credit is designed to encourage consumerism in China by providing a social credit score to improve transparency and trust which hopefully improves lending in China. Britizen will focus on what such a system where gamification and network effects affect one’s citizen score would look like in the United Kingdom. Britizen will provide incentives to users to obtain higher scores whilst dictating what affects scores and suggesting to the user ways in which one can raise their score.