Upgrade of DTAC sim card

[ripstanley]

I have had a prepaid DTAC sim card since 2008. About 3 years ago I had to upgrade from 2g to 3g sim card. There was no problem I showed my Thai Drivers Licence.

Early this year I received a SMS in Thai from DTAC. I asked my wife what it was about. She told me that I had to upgrade to a 4g sim card. After I received another SMS I went to our local DTAC office yesterday. To upgrade I had to show an ID. I showed my drivers licence. This was not acceptable and was asked for a Thai ID. As I am on an extension of stay that was not possible.

To get my upgrade my wife had to produce her Thai ID  to "guarantee" me. Her ID and my licence were photographed and entered into their system. My wife had to sign electronically and not me. I asked my wife to ask why this was happening and was informed that for a SMS upgrade a Thai ID was required. If I was applying for a new phone number this would not be required.

Has anyone else come across this situation? 

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[CharlieH]

MOVED to correct forum

[SCOTT FITZGERSLD]

i think this is done in compliance with banks and other big brothers demand.

most banks in asia are using your phone no. to identify you - and also track you.

you can't make payments on line, with some companies, for example, without

getting SMS with a passowrd to confirm the payment.

this adds more security to your banking, on one hand, but on the other hand 

it can hurt your privacy, as the big brother can track all your movements

via the sim movements, as we can see now with the virus outbreak in china.

the chinese goverment can track all the people that were sitting, for example, besides 

an infected person in the train, via their sim card.

they can see who they are, and where they are

now( for example, if they traveled to an other city) and than come to them and drag

them to forced quarantine.

 

another risk that crooks are using these days, is to cancell you phone no. , than ask 

for a passowrd to open it again (with your i.d., ext,  if they got it), and than

they have control over your phone no. and can empty your bank account,

so even giving your phone no. can be dangerous these days.

 

[jabis]

I also have a DTAC sim that had to be upgraded - not only did they want all the details they already have, but also photograph of me and as I have postpaid sim-card, they required work permit book (which since last visit to labour department is non-existant) - so I had to take screenshots from the digital work permit app and then they scanned the QR code and printed the data pages as well - getting the new sim took about 1½ hours from start to finish at a DTAC shop inside a Tesco Lotus mall in Chiang Mai - my fiancée bolted at 25 minutes mark to do the shopping we were meant to do, lol x) 

Edit: I don't believe the sim card had to be renewed for any 3/4/5G compliance, but for being a foreigner, as my fiancée has exactly same time purchased sim-card (from the same operator as I bought 2 new phones at the time registered for the both of us at the same time) and no insistence on renewing that ????

[AlexRRR]

DTAC is not an upgrade.......