Guiding Opinion on the Establishment of a Personal Creditworthiness System

Title: Guiding Opinion by the General Office of the State Council on Strengthening the Establishment of the Personal Creditworthiness System
Promulgating Entities: General Office of the State Council
Reference number: SGO release No. 98 (2016)
Promulgation Date: 2016-12-23
Expiration date: 
Source of text: http://www.gov.cn/zhengce/content/2016-12/30/content_5154830.htm
Translators Notes in Comments

Guiding Opinion by the General Office of the State Council on Strengthening the Establishment of the Personal Creditworthiness System

SGO release No. 98 (2016)

People’s governments of provinces, autonomous regions, and cities directly under the jurisdiction of central government, and all State Council ministries and commissions and directly managed agencies:

The following Opinion is issued, with approval by the State Council, so as to promote the traditional virtue of honesty, increase awareness of creditworthiness among members of society, strengthen the establishment of the personal creditworthiness system, reward trustworthiness and punish untrustworthiness, raise the trust level of the entire society, and build a positive trust environment.

I. General Requirements

(1) Guiding Thought. Fully put in place the spirit of the 18th Party Congress's 3rd, 4th, 5th, and sixth plenary sessions; deeply putting in place the spirit of General Secretary Xi Jinping's series of important speeches; follow the decisions and deployment of the party central committee and State Council, to take the core socialist values as the root in education and practice from which to vigorously promote a culture of creditworthiness, accelerate the construction of creditworthiness records, improve personal information security, privacy protection and mechanisms for credit restoration, build mechanisms for rewarding trustworthiness and punishing untrustworthiness, making it so that the trustworthy receive bennefits and the untrustworthy are restricted, and let creditworthiness become a value pursued by the entire society and a behavioral more, actively creating a positive environment where 'trustworthiness is honored and untrustworthiness is shameful".

(2) Basic Principles.

First is government promotion and joint construction with society. Fully put into play the government's role in organizing, guiding, promoting, and modeling roles in the establishment of the personal creditworthiness system. Regulate development of the credit market, encourage and modulate broad participation of social forces, jointly advancing, and forming a combined force for the construction of the personal creditworthiness system.

Second is completing the legal system, standardizing development. Complete systems of laws, regulations, and rules, and regular standards, to strictly protect personal privacy and information security.

Third is comprehensive advancement with breakthroughs in key areas. Promote the establishment of mechanisms for personal creditworthiness records in all areas and all industries, with key fields and key groups of people as the opening for breakthroughs. Rely on the national credit information sharing platform and each local credit sharing platform and financial credit information database and personal credit reporting establishments to separately bring about the recording, aggregating, processing, and application of personal public credit information and personal credit reporting information.

Fourth is strengthening application, and joint rewards and punishments. Actively cultivate public credit information product application markets, spread the social applications of personal public credit information, and broaden the scope of applications. Establish and complete mechanisms for joint rewards and punishments of personal creditworthiness, increasing incentives for personal trustworthiness and the degree of punishment for untrustworthiness.

II. Strengthening the education on personal creditworthiness

(1) Vigorously promote a culture of creditworthiness. Put the establishment of a culture of creditworthiness in an prominent position, using the cultivation and practice of the core socialist values as a base in vigorously spreading credit knowledge, drafting and promulgating codes of citizen creditworthiness, making education on creditworthiness run through the entire course of citizen morality construction and the creation of spiritual culture. Strengthen education on social morality, professional ethics, family virtues, and personal morality, building a social atmosphere where "the trustworthy are proud, the untrustworthy are ashamed, and those without credit are concerned.

(2) Carry out widespread publicity on creditworthiness. Take Spring Festival, International Consumer Rights Day, Labor Day, Children's Day, Online Credit Publicity Day, the National Day of Credit Concern, Credit Worthiness for Prosperity Publicity Month, National Day, National Constitution Day and National Legal Publicity Day, together with other important times and holidays and legally prescribed holidays, for concentrated publicity on credit policies and regulations, credit information, and type cases. Promote the creation of art works and public interest advertisements on creditworthiness that blend the traditional Chinese culture of creditworthiness with modern values, enriching the media for publicity on creditworthiness, increasing the frequency of publicity of creditworthiness, and raising the level of publicity on creditworthiness.

(3) Actively market examples of creditworthiness. Give full play to the role of media in publicity and guiding public opinion, vigorously explore and publicize relevant departments and social organizations as examples of creditworthiness, such as moral models of credit worthiness and exceptional volunteers. Organize all websites to carry out special topics on internet creditworthiness, regularly publicizing and promoting exemplars of creditworthiness, deeds of creditworthiness, to put forth a wave of high-quality online cultural projects, on the theme of creditworthiness, and strengthen using cases of online untrustworthiness as warning lessons. Support relevant departments and social organizations in recommending exemplars of creditworthiness and persons with no negative credit record to the public, and promote cross-departmental and cross-field measures for the joint reward of trustworthiness.

(4) Comprehensively strengthen creditworthiness education in schools. Make education on creditworthiness an important part of the ideological and moral education of students in elementary and secondary education, as well as schools of higher learning. Encourage schools of higher learning to develop courses related to the field of social credit. Support schools of higher learning with the capacity in developing majors related to social credit administration. Promote schools strengthening social credit administration, establishing and completing archives on the creditworthiness of adult students 18 years old or older, promoting making students' personal creditworthiness an important measure in their advancement, graduation, assessments and recognitions, issuance of scholarships, evaluations, recommendations and other such situations. Untrustworthy acts such as cheating on tests, academic fraud, not performing on promises to return financial assistance loans, or fabricating employment materials, are to be met with education, and the relevant information entered into their personal credit archive in accordance with laws and regulations.

(5) Widely develop credit education and training. Establish and complete systems for professional training and specialized evaluation in credit management. Increase the extent of training for persons working in credit, enriching knowledge of credit, and raising the level of credit management. Encourage all types of social organizations and enterprises to construct credit management and education systems, Organize the writing of primers on credit knowledge and rely on all kinds of community (village) basic level organization to spread credit information to the public.

III. Accelerating the establishment of personal creditworthiness records

(1) Promote the improvement of personal real-name registration systems. With the citizen identification number system as a foundation, advance the establishment of a uniform social credit number system. Promote efforts to register fingerprint information on resident identity cards, bringing about full coverage of citizens' uniform social credit numbers. Utilize information technology methods to continuously strengthen efforts to review personal identity information, ensuring uniqueness of personal identity distinguishing information. Advance the establishment of real-name registration systems using the internet, mail and couriers, telecommunications, financial accounts and other such areas as the focus, so as to accurately collect personal creditworthiness records and establish a foundation.

(2) Establish personal creditworthiness records in key fields. The relevant departments should accelerate the establishment and improvement of mechanisms for forming personal credit records , promptly summarize creditworthiness information formed by relevant personnel in relevant activities, to ensure that information is truthful and accurate, and bring about prompt and dynamic updates with the focus on industries such as food and drugs, production safety, fire safety, traffic safety, environmental protection, biological security, product quality, tax collection, health care, labor security, engineering and construction, financial services, intellectual property rights, judicial proceedings, e-commerce, and volunteer service; and the principal targets being the officials, legally-designated representatives and the relevant responsible persons for enterprises, lawyers, teachers, doctors, practicing pharmacists, appraisers, tax accountants, registered fire safety engineers, accountant audit personnel, real estate agents, certified personnel, financial professionals, and tour guides and other professional groups. The Basic Financial Credit Information Databases and personal credit reporting establishments should vigorously develop personal credit reporting information aggregation and services in key fields. Encourage industry associations, commercial associations and other industry organizations to establish and complete membership credit archives.

IV. Improving the mechanisms for personal information security, privacy protection, and credit repair

(1) Protect the security of personal information. Relevant departments should strictly follow relevant provisions to establish and complete, and strictly implement, rules systems for ensuring information security, clarifying the scope of authority and procedures for using personal information reviews, doing good work on security and protection of databases, establishing and improving systems for personal information inquiry registration and review, to prevent information leaking. Strictly follow the relevant laws and regulations to increase the degree of oversight and management of the financial information basic database and credit reporting agencies, to ensure that personal credit reporting businesses are developed up to code, safeguard the lawful rights and interests of information entities, and ensure the security of state information. Establish a credit archive and rule-breakers' "black list" system for credit reporting establishments and relevant personnel.

(2) Strengthen privacy protections. Personal public credit information must not be collected except by authorization of laws and regulations. Increase the extent of investigation and handling of acts such as the disclosure, alteration, destruction, sale or illegal provision to other of personal information. Implement key supervision and control of financial institutions, credit reporting establishments, internet enterprises, big data companies, and mobile application program development enterprises; regulating their collection, provision, use of personal information.

(3) Establish mechanisms for restoring credit. Establish mechanisms for the correction and restoration of personal public credit information, draft operational implementation regulations for management systems such as handling objections and administrative reconsideration. Clarify the display period for all kinds of public credit information, and no longer display or use public credit information that has exceeded the time limit. Clear channels for the restoration of credit, enrich the methods for credit restoration, explore methods such as active performance of obligations, applications for extensions, and providing explanations, to reduce the harm from breaking trust, and methods such as on time performance of obligations, volunteer service, and charitable donations to restore credit.

V. Standardizing the sharing and usage of personal creditworthiness information

(1) Promote sharing of personal public credit information. Draft national uniform catalogs, categorical standards, and regulation of public sharing and exchange of personal public credit information. Rely on all areas' credit information sharing platforms to establish personal public credit information databases. Rely on the national credit information sharing platform to gradually establish interconnected, intercommunicating, and mutually checking mechanisms that cross regions, departments, and industries.

(2) Actively develop personal public credit information services. All levels of people's government should promptly provide society with authorized public credit information inquiry services in accordance with laws and regulations. Explore mechanisms for categorical management based on personal public credit information and credibility score management. Areas and industries with capacity should establish relationships for sharing personal public credit information and basic financial credit information databases, and provide services to personal credit reporting establishments.

VI. Improving the mechanism for rewarding personal trustworthiness and punishing untrustworthiness

(1) Provide greater services and conveniences to individuals with good credit. Establish good credit records for administrative subjects designated as having good credit during categorical credit oversight and managemement, for moral models of creditworthiness, for exceptional volunteers, and for creditworthy members recommended by industry associations and chambers of commerce, as well as creditworthy entities uncovered by the news media; and all levels of people's government should innovate incentivization measures for trustworthiness, giving key support in areas such as education, employment, and entrepreneurship to individuals with good credit records, and providing further facilitation services to the extent possible; and, in the course of handling administrative permits, facilitation service measures such as "green channels" and "permissive acceptance" [acceptance despite defects in materials] may be lawfully employed for individuals' with good credit records and administrative counterparts who have not had any negative credit information recorded for three consecutive years. Encourage social establishments to lawfully use credit reporting products, and give preferential treatment and facilitation to individuals with good credit records, making it so that the trustworthy obtain greater opportunities and benefits in the marketplace.

(2) Carry out joint disciplinary action for individuals in key industries with serious untrustworthy conduct. Employ joint disciplinary action measures in accordance with laws and regulations against personal acts of untrustworthiness such as those that seriously endanger the public's safety in their health and lives, those that seriously undermine the order of fair market competition and social justice, refusals to perform legally prescribed obligations seriously influencing judicial and administrative organs credibility, as well as refusals to perform national defense obligations. List seriously untrustworthy individuals such as malicious debt evaders, illegal fundraisers, telecommunications and network defrauders, traffic violators, and those that do not pay taxes in accordance with law, as key targets for supervision, employing administrative constraint and punishment measures in accordance with laws and regulations. At the same time that joint disciplinary action is conducted against untrustworthy enterprises and public institutions, corresponding joint disciplinary action should be taken against the relevant responsible persons, in accordance with laws, regulations, and policies, and make joint disciplinary action reach down to the individual. Encourage making individual's records of serious untrustworthiness in market activities produced by financial credit information basic databases and personal credit reporting establishments, delivered to the national credit information sharing platform and being a consideration in carrying out punitive measures.

(3) Promote the formation of market and social constraints and punishments. Establish and complete systems for disclosure, exposure, and reporting of individual's serious untrustworthy acts, relying on the "China Credit" website, to lawfully publicly disclose information on serious untrustworthiness by individuals known by all levels of people's government, and fully putting into play the function of overseeing societal public opinion, forming a powerful social deterrent. Encourage market entities to provide differentiated services to seriously untrustworthy individuals. Support credit reporting institutions in collecting information on serious untrustworthy conduct and including it in credit records and credit reports.

VII. Strengthening safeguard measures

(1) Strengthen organizational leadership. All areas and departments should do overall planning and deployment for implementation of efforts to construct an personal creditworthiness system. Establish mechanisms for advancing workplace evaluations, and periodically urging, guidance and reviews of the efforts to construct a creditworworthiness system in that area or industry.

(2) Establish and improve laws and regulations. Gradually establish and improve the laws and regulations on the establishment of an personal creditworthiness system, strengthening protections of personal information security and personal privacy, vigorously preserving entity rights and lawful rights and interests of personal information, improve systems for regulating all phases in for personal public creditworthiness information, such as for its recording, aggregating, processing, and application; creating a positive legal environment for the establishement of an personal creditworthiness system.

(3) Expand the extent of monetary support. All areas and departments should strengthen financial safeguards for the establishment of social credit system, and actively provide financial support for the organization efforts on the construction of an personal creditworthiness system. Expand the extent of financial support on all sides such as for establishment of personal public credit information databases, application of information, publicity and education, and cultivation of talent.

(4) Strengthen the implementation of responsibility. All areas and departments should place great emphasis on efforts to establish an personal creditworthiness system, strengthening awareness of responsibility, detailing the division of labor, clarifying the times for completion marks, ensuring that responsibility, work, and implementation all reach down to the individual.

All localities and all departments should strengthen leadership, pay high attention, lead by example, consider actual work conditions and experiences, and realistically and effectively carry out the work related to the establishment of the personal creditworthiness system. The National Development and Reform Commission, jointly with relevant departments, is responsible for the general coordination, tracking and investigating, urging and inspecting, to ensure that all works are steadily and orderly carried out.
General Office of the State Council

December 23, 2016