Majority of Chinese support blacklisting individual misbehavior: survey

BEIJING, Aug 4 — Over 74 percent of respondents supported the proposal for individual misbehavior such as taking others' seats, eating or drinking on the subway to be recorded in personal credit records, said a survey released by the China Youth Daily.

More than 64 percent of interviewees said that fare dodging should be put on the credit blacklist, garnering the most support among different forms of uncivilized behavior.

"In this way people's daily behavior can be effectively regulated," said college student Huang Zhen quoted by the newspaper, who believes current information on individual credit records is scarce and difficult to access.

Shen Nan, a teacher from an educational institution in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, also finds it is important to have personal credit scores, saying "it is not just a matter of principle, but more a question of ethics."

While most people in China considered it beneficial to society, more than 60 percent of the surveyed are concerned about the risks of privacy leakage.

"People in some Western countries do not tend to combine individual habits and personal credit assessment, as it may increase the risks of information leakage," Zhu Wei, an associate professor from the China University of Political Science and Law, was quoted by the newspaper as saying.

The survey covered 2,001 people born between 1960 and 2000.