Biometrics system yielding results, says Immigration chief

 

Picture: Daily New

 

The word "biometrics" was being bandied about everywhere yesterday when acting immigration chief Lt-Gen Sompong Chingduang hosted a press conference. 

 

He said that the new system - that just came online at Thai airports and other immigration points - was helping stop people on fake passports and those wanted on other notices. 

 

Daily News listed the following cases, some of which have already featured on Thaivisa. 

 

1. Mr Soe, 47, from Myanmar was arrested on the 24th of May with a fake Malaysian passport on his way to Manila.

 

2. Mr Akouani, 21, and Miss Fofana, 22, from the Ivory Coast were stopped on June 10th using fake Mauritius passports to check in at the Lufthansa desk on their way to work in Frankfurt. 

 

In this case biometrics technology was unable to read a microchip. The arrested couple said they had paid 200 Euros for each of the fake passports.

 

3. Mr Amith, 41, from India was stopped using a fake Singaporean passport to fly Air China to Canada. Biometrics helped again.

 

He said he had paid a Nepail called Baba $1,000 for the passport. 

 

4. Liang Jerm Bo, 32, (of unknown nationality) was stopped on July 14th and found to have a counterfeit bio-data page in his passport. He was coming into Thailand at the time. 

 

He said that he had paid a Taiwanese man $20,000 (or around 600,000 baht) to help him get into Thailand from Taiwan.

 

5. Miss Li, a forty year old Chinese woman, was stopped at Phuket airport outbound on Friday when she was found - using the biometrics technology - to be on a red notice. She had been mentioned as a person wanted in China for fraud involving 100 million Yuan. 

 

Daily News repeated requests from immigration to report illegal foreigners on the 1178 hotline or through the immigration website. 

 

Source: Daily News

 

-- © Copyright Thai Visa News 2019-07-16

Follow Thaivisa on LINE for breaking Thailand news and visa info

Wow, FIVE people.

13 minutes ago, webfact said:

He said he had paid a Nepail called Baba $1,000 for the passport.

Baba's brother Buba awaits you on the inside ????

3 minutes ago, wgdanson said:

Wow, FIVE people.

only 400 Million Baht per person

 

Most people I know are trying to get out not in ????

17 minutes ago, webfact said:

Daily News repeated requests from immigration to report illegal foreigners on the 1178 hotline or through the immigration website.

But what ever you do don't report illegal Thais.

Good on the immigration people in their efforts to weed out the riff ruffs and the undesirable, maybe this way they will leave the good and serious people in peace...

4 minutes ago, ezzra said:

Good on the immigration people in their efforts to weed out the riff ruffs and the undesirable, maybe this way they will leave the good and serious people in peace...

Who will run the country then?Who will be left to turn off the lights?Are we not good and not serious types disrupting your peace that much that it causes you distress?

Five nabbed, 500k inconvenienced by slow system. Maibpenrai, let 'em eat cake.

5 hours ago, wgdanson said:

Wow, FIVE people.

"In this case biometrics technology was unable to read a microchip."... not even 5. In this case it was a dodgy chip, nothing to do with biometrics.

6 hours ago, Phuketshrew said:

Baba's brother Buba awaits you on the inside ????

Tut tut! The correct phonetic spelling is Bawbaw????

7 hours ago, wgdanson said:

Wow, FIVE people.

Five examples. Each showing a subtle difference in how biometrics helped.

 

But carry on.

Does any reader at all on Thai Visa really expect the Thais in government to ever accept that the new bio metrics system is not giving them outstanding value for money?

 

That would mean they made a mistake or bought the wrong system....That won't happen!  I am sill confused as to how it works but from what we can see, it seems in the main, to be catching fake passports.

 

To catch a blacklisted person who has changed their name, they surely must have this persons previous name and fingerprints on their biometric system. Am I right? How long have they been taking fingerprints of blacklisted deportees and putting them in the new system? Surely only the last couple of years?

 

That must be the way the caught the Indian recently, who managed to get back in the country with a new passport with changed name before the biometrics system was rolled out nationally.

I remember something about the UK airport scanners failed to scan many passports when they first started introducing chips into passports.

 

I hope they (Thais) understand that the chip in passports doesnt always work in the scanning machines. I would hate for anyone to be detained and deported due to a failed chip.

8 minutes ago, NightSky said:

I remember something about the UK airport scanners failed to scan many passports when they first started introducing chips into passports.

 

I hope they (Thais) understand that the chip in passports doesnt always work in the scanning machines. I would hate for anyone to be detained and deported due to a failed chip.

I have a brand new UK passport and am rejected at the fast gates at Heathrow. Every. Single. Time.

What biometric data do they use?

 

I am not really up on this subject, it would be great to know more about it if anyone else is. It seems to me that the European border system use facial recognition. Is that right? It took 3 sets of photos to get my last passport, the automatic readers have a camera I the presentation booth & it would make sense to have sophisticated detection systems in the walk ways to control (if not linked to planes & the departure airport).  Will facial (& perhaps iris?) recognition, be the future for identity tracking & if so why don't they co-ordinate the approach between countries? 

8 hours ago, webfact said:

He said that the new system - that just came online at Thai airports and other immigration points - was helping stop people on fake passports and those wanted on other notices.

Re-newed my annual visa early this month at my local office, apparently overnight the new system had been installed, all new computers, monitors and scanners etc greeted the 3 officers on arrival for work.

It was going to be the first day of operation, until the system wouldn't boot up... even the 90 day reporting was down.

An hour later after much brow-beating it was back to the old system again !

1 hour ago, 503726 said:

What biometric data do they use?

 

I am not really up on this subject, it would be great to know more about it if anyone else is. It seems to me that the European border system use facial recognition. Is that right? It took 3 sets of photos to get my last passport, the automatic readers have a camera I the presentation booth & it would make sense to have sophisticated detection systems in the walk ways to control (if not linked to planes & the departure airport).  Will facial (& perhaps iris?) recognition, be the future for identity tracking & if so why don't they co-ordinate the approach between countries? 

You can check what's on the chip if you have an android phone with NFC using this app: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=nl.innovalor.nfciddocshowcase&hl=en

 

I've used the automated facial scanning gates in Finland and Australia. Worked fine, although the Finnish robot was slow in getting the camera focused. 

Fine, but why do they need a full set of fingerprints, which is what's apparently causing the delays at Immigration? UK and Schengen use just one finger (and not the one you'd like to hold up to the IOs here at times????????)

22 hours ago, wgdanson said:

Wow, FIVE people.

5 people and only one passed through Thailand. How can he quote arrests made in other countries this way as if he is claiming they were caught here? 

Nice for the $$$$ spent grabbed 5? guys out but....

How many disgruntled tourist will remember standing 2+ hours in lines at

Suvarnabhumi airport after 10+ hour flights? Will that have any economical impact on an already failing tourism in Thailand??

Yes - yielding results alright. Much longer to get through outbound immi!  Or at least it was last night. I worked out that the average processing time per person was 1.5 minutes, which doesn't sound a lot. But if you've got 15 people in every queue when you arrive ..... go figure the wait!

 

I was given the 4 fingers right hand then four fingers left hand then two thumbs requirement. I thought that tourists were only doing four fingers right hand. May be wrong on that.