Sustainable Transportation and Social Credit Scores

While I missed it when it was announced, an announcement by Sunderland City Council back in mid-2022 clearly provides us with a sense that we are headed toward a social credit score which will be, in part, defined by our personal carbon footprint.

 

Here is the announcement from Sunderland's city council which is located in northeast England along the coast of the North Sea:

Here is a screen capture showing the webpage for the BetterPoints Sunderland website referred to in the announcement:

 

All that participants had to do is download the free BetterPoints app from either the Apple App Store on Google Play and register to be automatically added to the BetterPoints Sunderland challenge.  Participants were required to ensure that automatic tracking was turned on on their smart device so that the app could track their trips.  This would allow the app to credit their account with BetterPoints to either spend or donate to charity when they used "sustainable" methods of transportation including walking, cycling, running, using an e-bike and/or using public transportation.  

 

BetterPoints was founded in 2010 and claims that they can "make green and healthy behaviour irresistible".  The company combines technology and data to "motivate and measure behaviour change for health and wellbeing, transport and mobility and climate change".  The company claims the following achievements:

  

The company's mobile apps work as follows:

  

1.) the app combines tracking, motion sensing and user interaction with sophisticated server-side algorithms that verify activities and characteristics.

 

2.) this information is linked to different types and levels of incentives that are awarded to participants when they meet certain behavioural goals including exercising, completing an activity or trying something new.  

 

Well that isn't a breach of privacy in any way, is it? 

 

BetterPoints goals and rewards can be tailored to meet the needs and objectives of its clients.

 

I found this graphic on their website particularly interesting:

 

Basically, BetterPoints is behavioural modification with a "smile on its face". 

 

In the case of the Sunderland trial, BetterPoints rewards could be used at the following retailers:

 

...or donated to the following charities just to make you feel even better about yourself:

 

Sunderland is certainly not the first city to use this type of reward system for behavioural modification.  Here is an article about the Italian city of Bologna which appeared on the World Economic Forum website (not surprisingly) back in October 2018:

 

So, ride your bike (a healthy choice) and have a free beer or ice cream (a somewhat less than healthy choice).   Interesting concept, isn't it?

  

Here's a quote from the article by Johnny Wood (a great porn name if I ever heard one) with my bolds:

 

"In the Italian city of Bologna, people are rewarded for cycling, walking and taking public transport. 

 

Bella Mossa (Italian for “good job”) is the brainchild of urban planner Marco Amadori. The anti-pollution scheme aims to reduce car journeys and boost “green” travel with incentives like beer, ice cream or cinema tickets for participants who complete eco-friendly walks and rides.

 

Inhabitants of Bologna can download an app which uses GPS tracking to record their journeys. Each walk or trip by bike or bus earns points, which can be built up and exchanged for goods and services at local businesses that have signed up to the scheme. 

 

“The system of point collection is based not on the distance you travel but on a single trip, because it’s important that even for short trips of 1km you do it in a sustainable way,” Marco Amadori told the BBC. 

 

Bella Mossa has proved popular and there is talk of extending the initiative’s four-month operating period. The app allows a maximum of four trips to be logged each day, to encourage people to use the scheme over time and help make travelling around the city more sustainable."

 

What a perfect way to monitor every move of your citizens!

All of this makes me wonder how long it will be before these programs are mandatory and that every trip that we take is monitored and recorded and that those who are found wanting will find that rather than a beer or a retail prize at the end of the rainbow, will find some sort of punishment for breaching their obligation to Mother Earth, obligations that have been determined by the global aristocracy that reserves the right for itself to travel as it wishes, when it wishes and how it wishes.

 

Mandatory social credit scores here we come.  Can we say "boiling pot" and "frog"?

The World Economic Forum, Digital Identification and the Interlocking Social Credit Score

For anyone paying attention, it has become very clear that the world is headed toward a system of digital identification.  One proponent of this scheme is the World Economic Forum, the group of global rulers who seemingly has an answer to every negative issue facing humanity.  Back in February 2022 while the world was grappling with high inflation and the Omicron variant, the WEF released this document:

In this report, The WEF's Task Force on Data Intermediaries which is composed of these individuals:

 

....looked at what data privacy could look like in the future given the rapid changes in technology which have expanded data collection well beyond website cookies etcetera which are collected on our devices every time that we use them and are being used for commercial and/or public purposes.  For example, thanks to the Internet of Things (IoT) (i.e. screenless technology), data is collected unbeknownst to all of us every time we use smart devices in our homes.  The WEF suggests that data intermediaries could serve as a "police force" which would provide checks and balances for the use of our data.  These intermediaries could be private for-profit or public (i.e. a government agency).  

Here's what the report has to say about public data intermediaries:

 

"A public body or government agency could take on the role of an intermediary, especially as it relates to data coming from public bodies. Therefore, it can also act as an aggregator or gateway for such information. Such an intermediary could play an even greater role in making the data more easily accessible, identifiable, searchable and usable, including coordinating interoperable systems, especially across the public sector at least. Therefore, the role of a public body is arguably greater if it is an aggregator of multiple sources of public data. Another role it could play is to act as a super- intermediary, setting the national standard, data architecture and data standards for which all organizations would be required to comply. This will require deep expertise in privacy, data and technology, and therefore upskilling of the staff and/or hiring of a “data steward” with the required skillsets."

  

Here's what the report says about private for-profit data intermediaries:

 

"Whether and how a for-profit commercial entity can successfully serve its clientele under voluntary fiduciary duties of care and loyalty remain open to debate among stakeholders.29 A key driver of the success of this model is how the intermediary derives economic value to be able to perform and make this service available.  Without strict controls on the access, use and transfer of the underlying data provided by data ecosystem participants, this model could incentivize the intermediary to examine ways to profit from the data itself, unless prohibited by law or contractual arrangements. Where a participation fee may not generate sufficient profit, the provision of additional services could satisfy the economic argument without – requiring any service that involves or enables the intermediary to profit from the data itself, directly or indirectly. A hybrid of this approach and variation of cost models could bridge this issue. Various models could also co-exist, with a certification or trust mark for those that abide by certain agreed standards. On the other hand, however, is an immense opportunity for the most responsible organizations that could be incentivized to create or pay a trusted third-party intermediary to increase their independence and transparency with respect to their user base and thus commercial appeal with respect to offering services to their users."

 

Let's get to the "meat" (or insects) of this posting.  In the chapter entitled "Moving towards trusted digital agency", the authors look at the implementation of a digital identity scheme.  Here is a quote from the chapter:

 

"A digital ID is the electronic equivalent of an individual’s identity card. It is a way to provide verified personally identifying information of an individual for a software to read and process. Both online and offline environments can adopt digital identity. And it can also act as a key by storing and deploying permission.

 

Carefully designed and properly managed, digital ID can also enhance privacy protection and reduce the rise of identity fraud since each time only minimum information is needed for authentication for the specific purpose. Some of the biometric based digital ID systems have already been adopted in financial transactions and for a cash-free shopping experience. Such authentication and authorization processes can be completed in real time and free of hassle."

I always like how the WEF frames things in such positive terms as though, in this particular case, there is no nefarious aspect to the implementation of a digital identity.

 

As is typical of WEF publications, they provide this marvellous (and meaningless) graphic showing the importance of identity in the everyday lives of the servant class and how it can be wrapped into a digital identity:

 

 

Most importantly, this table shows the evolution of digital identities into the future:

 

And, there you have it.  According to the authors, the evolution of digital identities will become increasingly all-encompassing, particularly if/when Klaus Schwab's Fourth Industrial Revolution wet dream of implantable technology comes to fruition.  You will notice that the focus of digital identity will shift from "verified attributes and credentials" to "interferences about a person" .

  

If we got back to this graphic which is located just above the table, we find this clarification of "interferences" when looking at the evolving scope of digital identity:

 

This certainly would appear to suggest that your digital identity could be used as a form of social credit score with your online and offline behaviours being tracked and traced and used to infer your worthiness, interlocking your digital identity with your social credit score.  For example, your social behaviour which will be assessed through the analysis of your data which will be used to determine whether you are allowed to travel, make certain purchases of goods and services etcetera, similar to the system being used in China.  We saw the first tentative steps in the development of a social credit score ecosystem with the implementation of vaccine passports in many nations around the world which resulted in non-vaccinated individuals being stripped of their ability to travel, enter restaurants and pubs, play sports, retain their jobs etcetera.  This is even discussed in this report as shown here:

 

I'm quite certain that technology companies who are members of the World Economic Forum's inner circle are quite thrilled with the prospect of massive profits generated by the implementation of a data intermediary reality associated with a digital identity scheme.  Major shareholders of these companies stand to benefit personally just as the executives of certain Big Pharma companies benefitted during the pandemic, particularly when governments came on board to force their citizens to be vaccinated.  As well, if there is anything that we've learned in the post-September 11, 2001 era, it's that governments could care less about our privacy no matter what they may tell us and that the COVID-19 era has taught us that governments will use whatever means available to them, particularly virtual documents, to control our behaviours.  

Remember, your personal data is the next "golden asset" class.  The ruling class knows this and needs it to implement their dystopian plans for our futures.