The National-level policy for the development of a Social Credit System (SCS) in the PRC has been laid out in a Planning Outline adopted by the State Council in 2014. Due to be fully implemented by 2020, the SCS consists of a socially-embedded informational platform for reciprocal reporting and decision-making based on the ascription of unified credit scores to people and institutions, encompassing all aspects of social life. By engendering a reflexive mechanism for social evaluation rooted in merit and grounding the conduct of public affairs in such a mechanism, the SCS has the potential to profoundly redefine China’s public sphere. This paper questions whether and how the SCS’s soft-law-based fabric might travel into Hong Kong’s legal system. Whereas the SCS is set to encompass “all information subjects … and all regions nationwide” – which may include the Hong Kong SAR and its residents – would this be compatible with Hong Kong’s constitutional order and the values that underpin it?

Our 2020 Annual Conference was scheduled to be held at the University of Wrocław in Poland on July 9-11, 2020.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, our next Annual Conference will take place from July 8-10, 2021. The conference, "ICON•S Mundo", will be held online. Details regarding the organization of the 2021 Conference will follow soon.
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