Governments and private data brokers are building systems that try to guess who will commit a crime before anything happens — bad news for anyone whose data profile flags them.

• Predictive policing tools score people on how likely they are to break the law, using personal data, and in some cases family background or genetics.
• A social credit system already exists in a soft form through credit scores and the detailed advertising profiles companies keep on everyone.
• Police and security agencies can buy that same advertiser data, so commercial tracking feeds directly into law enforcement.
• The justification given for all of it is national security, which makes it hard to challenge.

Outlook: Expect these scoring systems to spread quietly, with little public debate over who gets flagged or why.