The country’s ruling communist government launched the citizen-monitoring system last year, with it due to be fully implemented by 2020.
It is designed to make it “difficult” for Chinese people branded “untrustworthy” to move around freely.
Those who are “trustworthy” are rewarded for things such as volunteer work or blood donations, while those with low social credibility score are blacklisted and punished.
And it has now emerged that 17.5 million people hoping to board planes last year were stopped from doing so as a punishment for not paying fines.
This is in addition to a further 5.5 million who were prevented from travelling by train for similar offences.
Other misdemeanours that can lead to this type of punishment include minor things like walking a dog without a leash and false advertising.
President Xi Jinping’s Government has said of the system: “We will improve the credit blacklist system, publicly disclose the records of enterprises and individuals’ untrustworthiness on a regular basis, and form a pattern of distrust and punishment.”
The monitoring mainly works by using a vast network of linked computers in China logging citizens’ details, as well as cutting-edge artificial intelligence that can track people travelling in public.
Critics have branded it Orwellian in the extreme, with US Vice President Mike Pence calling it a “system premised on controlling virtually every facet of human life”.
But those within the country have encouraged it as promoting good behaviour.
Last year, its roll-out encouraged 3.51 million people to pay outstanding fines and taxes.
