IMF proposes to base credit rating on internet search history

Traditional data used for credit scoring could be replaced by AI-powered processes based on online search and purchase histories

Using non-financial data such as “the type of browser and hardware used to access the internet," or "the history of online searches and purchases,”

Moreover, they say, traditional credit data is not available for “certain kinds of people, like new entrepreneurs, innovators and many informal workers,”

Source
Researchers from the IMF have proposed basing credit rating on internet search history, as well as which internet browser or device are being used to do so. The excuse they give is that traditional credit data isn't available for "certain kinds of people". In reality, this is just another one of the many heavy pushes towards communist practices like those used in China to maintain absolute control over their population. The real goal here is to use credit as a tool to encourage or discourage thought and ultimately control people. You searched for something the government doesn't approve of? You have political ideas you're not allowed to have? You used an app or a device that the government doesn't have total ability to use to spy on you? Sorry, your credit rating just dropped.
Developing a good credit rating is not hard. Mine is just about as high as it can possibly go. You know how I accomplished that? I got a credit card about 3 years ago and used it to pay for groceries and online purchases, while NOT buying things I couldn't afford. That was all it took.

a reply to: trollz

This is just more Orwellian BS.

The existing financial credit system exists to weed out unreliable borrowers. This scheme has nothing to do with credit and the IMF should just

The IMF needs a great reset, if you know what I mean.

So in other words, THIS IS REALLY A SOCIAL CREDIT SCORE.

Everyone on here better watch their search history!
Or we can all just grow a pair and stand up to this tyranny......

a reply to: trollz

What a creepy and terrible idea. I would have thought that buying things on credit and paying them off in a timely and orderly manner was the best way to build your credit score. Leave it to some pervy bureaucratic bean counters to think up a "better way".

I wonder how protected an individual would be if they...

- Used DuckDuckGo

- Used the "Private Window" function on their browsers exclusively. (this is a real pain for passwords and usernames though)

a reply to: Destal

It is really a participation pass for life, if you fit the good citizen requirements.

Nothing to do with loan repayment ability.

They want to leverage your actual credit if you call oit their corrupt a$$es on the internet.

a reply to: trollz

They're not proposing it. They're sounding a warning.

From the article:

Policy challenges

That growth potential ensures that digital innovation in information and communication is bound to deepen even further and give rise to new priorities in several policy areas. Prudential regulation faces perhaps the most substantial challenges. Regulators need to assess the operational risks of new lending technologies and business models facing their first real-life stress test during the COVID-19 downturn.

Other risks also loom large: more cybersecurity risks (financial institutions and customers using more online services creates potential new opportunities for criminals), and regulatory arbitrage (tailoring business models to reduce regulatory oversight). To address all these challenges, regulatory agencies need to ensure that their expertise matches that of the industry—something historically difficult that may become even harder as more talent enters the financial technology sphere and the pace of innovation accelerates.

So, they've admitted we're being spied on, just now they came up with a way to use that data viciously?

I'm screwed with my search history.

Will VPNs do anything? Or just change the location?

a reply to: trollz
What in the hell does me Googling classic car parts and videos of people getting attacked by chickens have anything to do with my ability to pay back a loan? This crap is insane! Being in IT I know there are several ways around this but that isn’t the point. This crap needs to stop!

a reply to: trollz

I was once refused credit because I didn't owe any one any money to anyone, and was therefore an uncertain credit risk.

I agree in principle with the IMF research funding "

The use case of "...could advance financial inclusion, by, for example, enabling more credit to informal workers and households and firms in rural areas,”

is sickly sweet nonsense .

How did an excluded person get a computer or phone line in the first place?

Fortunately if the lads who came up with this idea are dumb enough to pitch this as a use case, they won't be smart enough to see it through.

a reply to: trollz

What a great excuse to make using a VPN illegal.

a reply to: ManSizedSquirrel

It is all about big data and that you can refine prediction models on the margins by looking at people's habits and search histories.

For example, credit card companies and retailers have used data mining techniques and I recall seeing a study saying they coudl predict an upcoming divorce based in purchase habits. Someone of a certain age, marriage, income, purchases a certain amount of alcohol and they determine you are on brink of divorce statistically....

IN regards to search, if someone is googling bankruptcy laws they may be likely to file bankruptcy....

It is just like in the Minority Report to some degree... where they are trying to predict if you will do something before you do it.

a reply to: trollz

I'm starting to agree with a lot of journalists I follow, that print based hard copies need to start becoming a thing again or else we are in trouble.

I should start my own library of important books.

To address the topic on face value tho, if this were to happen it sounds like it could easily be cheated ... but then that brings me back to my initial comment, the control of information can't be cheated.

a reply to: trollz

So easy to manipulate.

Every time you search "are there aliens"
also search "how to prove there are no aliens to my coworkers"

Every time you search "is the government watching me"
also search "how to convince your parents the government will use surveillance for good"

Every time you search "what does it mean if my eyes bleed"
also search, "why do homeless people have bloody eyes"

TA-DA !

Searching porn is at least a 840 credit score...

Good old IMF. A cartel of robber barons and international criminals who prey on the populace of vulnerable countries destroyed by the interests of global megacorporations.

Now they propose an idea identical to that of the Communist Chinese Social Credit System. As if the existing credit system was not tyrannical enough.

Personally I will make a habit of entering extremist searches to get the lowest credit score possible. Credit is Tyranny. Debt is Slavery. The IMF are gangsters who should've been abolished and their thieving directors hanged decades ago.

a reply to: trollz

I could be wrong, but I really don't think the IMF has any regulatory authority over credit/lending practices in the US.

Read the article again......typically the IMF is about managing loans to 3rd world countries and it sounds as if they are trying to add some feature to better enable them to get credit cards out to the impoverished.

On one hand... All the hardware I use would give me a good credit score.

On the other, the Brazilian fart porn could hurt it.

I'm torn.

a reply to: trollz

GTFY IMF.

We are not Sargus 4.

originally posted by: JAGStorm

So easy to manipulate.

Every time you search "are there aliens"
also search "how to prove there are no aliens to my coworkers"

Every time you search "is the government watching me"
also search "how to convince your parents the government will use surveillance for good"

Every time you search "what does it mean if my eyes bleed"
also search, "why do homeless people have bloody eyes"

TA-DA !

Great.

You tell the algorithm all it needs to label you an individual which should have more scrutiny.

It's about the keywords, and you multiply them unnecessarily me thinks.

I'm even suspicious of "Virtual Private Networks" .. never really know who runs them either.