Overview of Thailand Draft Personal Data Protection Act

By Haruethai Boonklomjit (HK), Natpakal Rerknithi (HK), Anna Gamvros (HK) and Ruby Kwok (HK)

 

FILE photo

 

Data protection laws in Asia continue to be introduced and updated. One of the most recent developments in South East Asia is in Thailand. On 22 May 2018, the Thai Cabinet approved in principle a revised draft of Thailand’s first personal data protection act (Draft Act). This Draft Act is currently under consideration by the Council of State.

 

Thailand currently does not have any specific law regulating data protection. The Office of the Prime Minister first published the Draft Act in 2014. The Draft Act has undergone several rounds of changes and this article aims to give a high level overview of the recently approved version of the Draft Act.

 

The Draft Act has been revised to replicate many of the concepts and obligations which are common across global data protection laws and in particular the GDPR. We have highlighted some of those key obligations below.

 

Full story: https://www.dataprotectionreport.com/2018/08/overview-of-thailand-draft-personal-data-protection-act/

 

-- NORTON ROSE FULBRIGHT 2018-2018-08-07

The draft data protection law seems reasonable; that said I would always wait to see what the final draft looks like as Thai authorities have a bad habit of slipping horrid little nuggets into laws at the last minute.

 

Even though the draft seems okay at the moment, it is not the problem

 

The problem in Thailand is one of enforcement, compliance and penalties. In short, despite what any law says, Thai companies and institutions don't always follow the relevant laws, don't always comply with all the requirements and have no fear whatsoever of penalties. In short, whatever the law says rarely matters as if a company is large enough, connected enough or rich enough, laws generally don't apply.

 

Until Thai laws apply equally to all under a reasonable system of justice and law, any rules, laws and/or regulations are essentially meaningless words on paper.

 

Thailand has generally terrible IT people and even worse privacy culture. The law will be fine as they have copied most of it from other countries, and I'm sure it will be printed in a nice pretty book. 

 

However, as always the case in Thailand, who trusts that people will actually follow the law and prosecute offenders fairly and consistently??? 

 

Nobody? I thought so. 

I assume this will stop companies getting my data and calling me which is very irritating. Thinking about it data will not be protected except for information that has no monetary value

Greetings to the French fella working in Rayong, if you ever need your salary slip, the immigration was kind enough to give me a copy of it on the back of my 90day receipt. There's privacy for you.