Digital Thai economy bills 'must address public concerns'

[webfact]

Digital economy bills 'must address public concerns'
Asina Pornwasin
The Sunday Nation

BANGKOK: -- Drafters of the digital economy bills have admitted that the draft needs to be revised to better address public concerns before they become laws this year.

The Electronics Transactions Development Agency (ETDA), a public organisation responsible for drafting the bills, hosted an open forum yesterday to hear public opinion on the points of concern over the proposed bills.

The Agency's executive director and chief executive Surangkana Wayuparb said that as the bills were hastily drawn up so that the National Legislative Assembly could pass them before the next election, some points of concern raised by the public, especially regarding the Cyber Security Bill's Article 35 (3), lacked detail about the authority's power.

"We're committed to the balanced use of [the authority's] power, checking [the authority's] power, and people's rights," said Surangkana.

She insisted that the goal of the bills was to support development of the digital economy and not impose a set of security laws.

"If it's done too quickly or in a hurry, we tend to forget some things. We forgot to have public communication. And we admit that we missed some points and missed the chance to communicate with the public, who have raised concerns over these bills," she said.

"We will revise them, especially the particular points of concern. We will open a forum to hear public opinion parallel with the consideration of the Council of State. We will communicate and hold public hearings until they become law."

She said the bills were expected to become law this year.

The first batch of laws would include the bill on the establishment of the National Digital Commission for the Economy and Society and the bill on ministerial restructuring, she revealed.

The second batch would in-

clude the Electronics Transaction Bill and related bills, while the last batch would be the National Broadcasting and Telecommunica-tions Commission Bill, the Digital Economy and Society Development Fund Bill, the Cyber Security Bill, the Computer Crime Bill, and the Personal Data Protection Bill.

"These difficult bills cannot get passed by a normal government. We would like to get them finished during the term of this government. The first batch will be passed in the first round within the next three months," said Surangkana.

Sarinee Achavanuntakul co-founder of the Thai Netizen Network, said that in principle nobody denied that Thailand should have the bills but the content needed to be looked at more closely because "the devil is in the detail".

She said there were many points of concerns such as the Cyber Security Bill's Article 35, as it did not give a definition of cyber-threat.

'Revise the bills'

"It seems that the process to pass the 10 bills is not to be retard, it is just to have an open forum every Saturday. I think that is not enough. Instead, it should have the solid mechanism of having a public hearing on these bills," said Sarinee.

She suggested that the drafters revise the bills by using as a guideline the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development's Privacy and Personal Data Protection document.

"The digital economy is boundless, so the digital economy bills should be internationalised. The important point is the balance between cyber-security and computer crime and people's privacy and personal data protection, which will affect the development of the digital economy," said Sarinee.

Pichet Kongsri, a member of the Digital Economy Working Group Committee chaired by Deputy Prime Minister MR Pridiyathorn Devakula, said the bills were not designed to be security laws; they were a set of bills to support the digital economy.

Pichet said that the word "security' contained in the bills did not relate to government security but security for society, the economy, the political sphere, and each member of the public personally.

"We are finding solutions to balance security in these four dimensions," said Pichet.

Kriengkrai Bhuvanij, a representative of the Thai Federation of ICT Technology Association, said that global technology firms were paying attention to how the government was handling the matter, especially the Cyber Security Bill, as it would affect them.

Nawanan Theera-Ampornpunt, deputy executive director for Informatics, the Faculty of Medicine at Ramathibodi Hospital, Mahidol University, said the government's attitude was important - that it was not looking for control but ways to deal with cyber problems.

Nawanan said the administration should find a point to balance between ensuring the public's privacy and facilitating business and public services, while also balancing personal and public-data protection.

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/business/Digital-economy-bills-must-address-public-concerns-30252624.html


-- The Nation 2015-01-25

[surangw]

as for the public, the only digital part they will see it the middle finger

[timendres]

These difficult bills cannot get passed by a normal government.

Wow! That should scare anybody.

[HiSoLowSoNoSo]

"We're committed to the balanced use of [the authority's] power, checking [the authority's] power, and people's rights," said Surangkana.

When a politician says that they will protect peoples rights the outcome is normally the opposite.

[rickirs]

"These difficult bills cannot get passed by a normal government. We would like to get them finished during the term of this government."

No truer words. A democratically-elected government (aka "normal") formulated by the German MMP electoral system that the CDC wants to adopt would not allow such bills to develop, much less pass.

It is wise of the Junta-led government to get as many laws passed as possible by its self-appointed and rubberstamp National Legislative Assembly, with the Junta-created constitution making repeal or amendment of such laws impossible, before it allows a "normal" government to succeed its administration.

Edited January 26, 2015 by rickirs