Plan to track all foreigners - NOT JUST TOURISTS - by SIM cards moves forward

[Winniedapu]

8 minutes ago, Dah fahrang said:

The "other" English language Thai newspaper features a headline article today, 10th, which clarifies, and closes the debate.

 

It probably clarifies , but I doubt it closes the debate as much as defers it.

 

This is Thailand remember...

 

Winnie

[sambum]

22 hours ago, majhiggins said:

I'm surprised they've never started charging us a fee to process our 90-day checkins!

 

Shhh!

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

You don't have to talk in code. It's OK to repeat what the BKK Post reported. You just can't link to or quote from them.

 

So the government in the Post report is clarifying that their Big Brother SIMs won't apply to expat living here -- just tourists.

 

But there was this interesting comment from the govt telcoms guy:

 

The phone companies can preset technical features in SIM cards so that they can always find users, and users won't be able to turn off the location function. 

 

So if I was going to be a tourist to Thailand in the future, should this plan ever be implented, I'd simply avoid ever using a Thai mobile SIM. There are lots of other (non-Thai SIM) ways of communicating.

Edited August 10, 2016 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[RayD]

I bought a new SIM card a couple of days ago. I asked if I had to register it and the guy just laughed. Registration is finished, he said.

 

Sooo, AIS, True, DTAC ?

2G, 3G ?

Prepaid postpaid ?

 

Plan fully worked out, right?

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

In my experience, if you're dealing directly with any of the mobile companies like AIS, True or DTAC, they will want to get a passport copy from a foreigner.

 

If you're dealing with the girl at 7/11 or any of the countless mobile phone shop counters around the country, not so much.

[NE1]

I need to find out who is going to make these SIM cards and buy shares in this company .

Thailand says there will be approx. 25 to 35 million tourists arrive in any calendar year.

So everyone of those tourists must have one of these SIM cards.

25 to 35 million units sold every year ,

Man that is a good business venture in anybody's language.

Edited August 10, 2016 by NE1

[MissAndry]

On 8/9/2016 at 0:30 PM, oilinki said:

One possibility could be that these SIM are using specific APN for 'free' channel to broadcast phone's GPS information to the government and it would be mandatory for foreigners to have GPS enabled on their phones?

 

Option 1, have a very cheap phone not smart with the tracking SIM

Option 2,  Have two phones, the one with the tracking SIM not charged

Option 3, Have no phone at all.

[Dah fahrang]

1 hour ago, Winniedapu said:

 

It probably clarifies , but I doubt it closes the debate as much as defers it.

 

This is Thailand remember...

 

Winnie

Yeah. you're dead right, Winniedapu! Deferred until some bright spark rehashes the idea. Watch this space, I suppose?

[eastendanto]

On 09/08/2016 at 6:37 AM, mtls2005 said:

"I'm quite curious about the technical solution. Why a special SIM card is needed or is it just a way to say, that these numbers will be actively triangulated without a warrant?"

 

My guess is that "they" don't want to alarm Thai citizens, so they're 'pretending' to introduce 'special' farang SIMs, which are they only ones which can be tracked, or so the populace will be led to believe.

 

Of course once this is implemented it will be hacked, and probably used for unintended purposes.

 

If you don't have a SIM one will be implanted for a nominal fee.

 

Originally this was more about recycling short-term SIMs owing to a number shortage, but it seems to have morphed into another sort of model.

 

They are gonna trial the new human sim card.... your hand will  get injected with it as you enter immigration in Thailand and then it is removed when you leave the country....It will bring a new meaning to "talk to the hand"

 

The technical solution is not really the issue here, as we have seen that tracking of mobile phones/sims is in use by security forces around the world today, here in London, Oyster cards which are used for travel by the general population are often tracked by Police to look at the movements of "persons of interest"  around the capital. Taking aside the invasion of privacy conundrum,  the planning, implementation and operation of such a vast piece of work is beyond Thai capabilities to be done in a coherent and timely way. if left to them to do will take years or may just quietly go away and be parked in the "another failed idea/project" bin... which means the alternative would be to bring in outside expertise i.e consultants to implement and then train the Thai people to operate it....However the idea of using external sources to plan and execute such an idea probably does not sit well with Mr. Prayut ....

Edited August 10, 2016 by eastendanto
Add further comment

[salavan]

 

[Dagnabbit]

So if you have a roaming package from your home country - you won't be able to use it here?

 

That should make lots of business people happy.

 

 

[ClutchClark]

2 minutes ago, Dagnabbit said:

So if you have a roaming package from your home country - you won't be able to use it here?

 

That should make lots of business people happy.

 

 

 

Ah...no...that is exactly the opposite of what the news release stated.

 

 

[autanic]

19 hours ago, SiSePuede419 said:

If you don't like it, you can always move to Somalia...

 

No I don't like it. But there are a hell of lot of more welcoming Countries between here and Somalia. 

 

Most tourists in Thailand that have returned year after year and supported the Thai Economy/People and boom are now asking what about Burma, it now has an internationally accepted stable government and the cost of living is significantly less than Thailand.

 

You could say, Burma and Thailand are brothers which has swapped their clothes.

[GuestHouse]

Its so that when Smart-Phone payment takes off in Thailand they can can automatically charge foreigners the 'Farang Price'.

 

Ahead of the curve when it comes to welcoming foreign guests. 

[Deepinthailand]

Well if you belive what a lot are saying on here there will be a lot of houses on the market soon ??????? cheap as chips so they can get away to a sim free country

[tuonsai]

This stuff is truly scary, I feel sorry for you guys who invested a lot in Thailand.

[seedy]

Derogatory post / Nonsense post Removed

[Friendly Stranger]

Twilight Zone theme playing.

 

Nice scheme.  At least it's better than the star of david patches, heard those were a real hit.

[dageurreotype]

As I predicted, this has made every Western media outlet today. Well done Thailand. Muppets.

[JayBeeee]

7 hours ago, seedy said:

Derogatory post / Nonsense post Removed

I refer the honorable gentleman to the response I gave earlier!

[Expat Brad]

The thing is this..........the new sim will probably be the same as per the Chinese sim for foreigners which means higher call charges. End story!!!  

 

 

[steve down under]

how are they going to implement this hare brained scheme if the person coming into the country has a  phone that is locked to a network ? because I for one wouldnt be buying an unlocked phone just to be tracked like some sort of criminal 

[sezze]

3 hours ago, Expat Brad said:

The thing is this..........the new sim will probably be the same as per the Chinese sim for foreigners which means higher call charges. End story!!!  

 

 

 

100% true , and i do not mean the company .

It doesn't matter that they cannot track every movement of the foreigner , or that you throw it at the bin or whatever . It is just a basic tax you have to pay . When you enter the country , together with your stamp , you WILL get a sim card , in which you DO have to pay for . Calls and internet WILL be more expensive ( if you choose to use it , otherwise you need somebody to register a Thai to register the card for you ) .

If you register the card at Thais name , you will change phonenr's many times as you will probably need to register the nr again every few months .

Phonecompanies are probably very happy .

Now i do not know but maybe this has also something to do with putting Thaksin out of play , since he is the owner of the biggest Thai telephone company . By this , he owns extra cash , and he is happy .... ... just a wild guess ??

[JayBeeee]

Well, that was short-lived; they seem to have backed down already! Another mindless mouth going off half-cocked!

[geronimo]

Thailand is like a good looking woman. It doesn't matter what she does, people like her.

[autanic]

I have just had an idea. 

 

A moment of clarity it would seem.

 

Why not just go along with it. Accept the Sim Card use it and play the game, the way you should. I mean at the end of the day, who care if you can be tracked by sim card, who cares if they are listening to your phone calls and who cares if your emails and internet posts are being monitored.

 

My point is 99% of people visiting Thailand will do so, have a great time and leave.

 

What do we really care if the listen in on a call to Mum saying "hey i'm having a great time, slept with a Ladyboy last night and loved it".

 

Lets put things in perspective.

[digibum]

Quote

“We would just facilitate the police. So they could more easily track foreigners who enter the country and commit crimes,” he said. “The function is not in SIMs card for Thais because we can always easily track them.”

 

Uhm, unless foreigners were responsible for the recent bomb attacks, you might want to put a little more time and effort into figuring out how to track Thais first before jumping up to the big leagues and tracking foreigners.  All those bombs were detonated with cell phones if I'm not mistaken.  

[retoohs]

4 hours ago, autanic said:

I have just had an idea. 

 

A moment of clarity it would seem.

 

Why not just go along with it. Accept the Sim Card use it and play the game, the way you should. I mean at the end of the day, who care if you can be tracked by sim card, who cares if they are listening to your phone calls and who cares if your emails and internet posts are being monitored.

 

My point is 99% of people visiting Thailand will do so, have a great time and leave.

 

What do we really care if the listen in on a call to Mum saying "hey i'm having a great time, slept with a Ladyboy last night and loved it".

 

Lets put things in perspective.

it is sad to see freedom slowly eroding away and lives being controlled by those in power. This is not unique to Thailand, it has happening worldwide as governments change monitoring laws of digital devices and social media sites. If we all bend over and let them shaft us without protest or resistance we become part of the problem. I will resist putting one of these simcards into my phone and happily give up having a mobile phone if it comes to that but in all honesty I can't see this ever getting off the ground just because of the logistics involved with the idea. For a start how are they going to know what pre-exiting cards they should disable? Many of us have cards that aren't registered to ourselves which could well belong to a Thai. I do not want to be monitored like a criminal.

[greenchair]

How  can thai be easily tracked already. Do they have a similar device already planted without thai knowledge? 

[BSJ]

Have they run out of ankle bracelets and padlocks?