The following results have been achieved so far:
First, drawing on semi-structured interviews and document analysis in Shenzhen, one of China’s most praised smart cities, we studied why national digital ambitions do not always get implemented directly at the local level. In our published case study on Shenzhen (Große-Bley and Kostka, 2021), we show that, at the local level, the successful implementation of digital systems faces numerous hurdles in long-standing data management and bureaucratic practices that are at least as challenging as the technical problems. Furthermore, the study finds that the digital systems in Shenzhen entail a creeping centralization of data that potentially turns lower administrative government units into mere users of the city-level smart platforms rather than being in control of their own data resources. Smart city development and big data ambitions thereby imply shifting stakeholder relations at the local level and also pull non-governmental stakeholders, such as IT companies and research institutions, closer to new data flows and smart governance systems.
Second, we set up a digital database on digital governance in China at the local level via web scrapping and human coding, using the provinces Anhui, Sichuan, and Zhejiang as focus provinces. The goal was to build a dataset containing prefectural-level data on local government initiatives of digital governance in China. The sources of the database are from but are not limited to official government websites (prefecture, county, and district level government websites, relevant bureaus such as Big Data Bureau websites), media reports, special journals, statistics, yearbooks, and other official reports.
Third, in our project, we studied how facial recognition technology (FRT) is employed in China and assess public attitudes toward FRT. We find that on the one hand, FRT is seen as a potentially powerful instrument for law enforcement and commercial interests. Government applications of FRT are wide-ranging, including improved security in schools and airports, location of missing people, fighting against crime and corruption, paying out pensions, imposing age restrictions on online viewing of pornography, and limiting gambling addiction. At the same time, FRT poses ethical dilemmas, since the technology is subject to biases, remains prone to inaccuracies, and can intrude on privacy when used clandestinely. The promised benefits of FRT applications come with trade-offs regarding digital mass surveillance, discrimination, privacy intrusion, as well as infringement on human rights. As a multi-purpose tool, the same underlying technology thus helps people and saves lives, and can also horrify individuals and pose ethical conundrums. In our project, we study how technology is employed in China and assess public attitudes toward FRT. While previous research has pointed out that facial recognition technology is an instrument for state surveillance and control, our study, based on interviews and an online survey, shows that surveillance and control are not foremost on the minds of citizens in China, but rather notions of convenience and improved security.
Fourth, a variety of commercial and local government Social Credit Systems (SCSs) are now being implemented in China in order to steer the behavior of Chinese individuals, businesses, social organizations, and government agencies. Previous studies have looked at SCS in general (Creemers, 2018) or studied public attitudes of SCS (Kostka, 2019) and behavioral responses, (Kostka and Antoine, 2020). The Chinese government with its control of state media has a powerful instrument with which to maintain positive impressions of SCSs. In this subproject of the overall ERC project, we studied if and to what extent Chinese state media has painted a rosy picture of the SCSs, an issue framing that our previous analysis suggests has been quite successful. We explain this overall positive attitude by citizens by focusing on citizens’ lack of knowledge regarding the repressive nature of digital surveillance in dictatorships (Xu, Kostka, Xun 2023). We further suggest that, despite perceiving SCSs as accepting and positive, most interviewees do not actively engage with local government-run SCSs (Li and Kostka, 2022). Multiple factors can explain the gap between high acceptance and low participation, including a lack of awareness regarding local SCSs, a perception that registering and maintaining a decent credit score requires major effort, various concerns over SCSs (e.g. information privacy and safety, as well as algorithm accuracy and fairness), clarity of rules and guidelines, potential risks, unappealing benefits offered by SCSs, and the voluntariness of participating in local SCSs. Our research adds to the existing literature on digital governance in authoritarian contexts by explaining why Chinese citizens do not necessarily engage with state-promoted digital projects.
