What's your responsibility score? - Stephen Baker

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What's your responsibility score? posted on October 24, 2008

General

See those people in American Gothic? Do they look more "responsible" than you? I researched and wrote a story over the last week about how banks will be looking for new and different sources of data about us to assess our risks and possibilities. (Clearly they didn't focus on the right data during the recent housing boom.)

One of the most interesting interviews was with Fair Isaac, the data analytics company that creates the most widely used "credit score" for each of us. It's known as FICO. The research fellow (and former CEO) Larry Rosenberger talked about one day creating "a responsibility score" for each of us. Imagine how useful that would be for human resources departments, college admissions offices. What data would correlate with responsible behavior? Getting your kids through high school? Paying your cell phone bills on time? Getting a colonoscopy the day after your 50th birthday?

Would you like to carry such a score around life, perhaps worrying every time you got a speeding ticket or bounced a check that your numbers would be dropping?