Thailand approves plans to track tourists' phones

[Phuketboy]

The first step they need to take care of is their own people and they can't even do that.

Someone mentioned they could make it illegal to use someone's else's sim or a sim registered in a Thai name.  How would they go if you use a sim registered to your Thai company?  How would they stop this?

Personally, I don't believe they have the skills or competence to make this work.  Far too sophisticated for them.

[louis111]

You could mail your cheap phone back in your country abroad and overstay in Thailand

[ClutchClark]

Why does this frighten all of you?

 

Am I the only person in the entire country who is not breaking some law and afraid of being found?

[niebla]

Not sure if anyone mentioned this. I have five sims registered. They are used by two minors, two adults and a senior citizen. Register multiple sims to the same person, (I can have multiple phones?) and give the phones to different people. Still tracable but adds a level of complexity.

[ClutchClark]

2 minutes ago, niebla said:

Not sure if anyone mentioned this. I have five sims registered. They are used by two minors, two adults and a senior citizen. Register multiple sims to the same person, (I can have multiple phones?) and give the phones to different people. Still tracable but adds a level of complexity.

 

OK...your two minors do not arrive home from school. No one you call knows where they are.

 

you don't want emergency services to be able to quickly locate them?

[ironbark]

The number of Chinese, Laos, Burmese and Cambodians who are illegal immigrants and workers far outnumber the number of number of overstay farang.

 

Tracking and identifying these people I think is the main reason for this action.

 

But wait until the elite that rely on this exploited underclass start to complain that their cheap labour force is drying up and the proposal will be quietly dropped.

Edited August 10, 2016 by ironbark

[seajae]

if this was being pushed as beneficial to tourists etc most people probably wouldnt be too worried but they are pushing it as being due to crimes being committed by said tourists so they are in fact saying that farangs etc are responsible for all the crime here(nothing unusual there though as they think thais do not commit crime, hahahahaha). With millions of tourists a year, what percentage is actually committing a crime in Thailand, would it be even 1% of them while 99% is committed by thais(many of them higher up in the echelon as well), this is some idiots idea of blaming farangs for all the criminal acts here, face is just too important to some and they cannot admit that  many thais are corrupt and are explicit in most of the criminal acts in the country

[keith101]

buy the cheapest second hand phone put the sim in it and leave it at home and get a local to get you a sim for your normal phone job done

[dcsw53]

Interesting idea.

If you are from the UK ( maybe other countries as well ) and you have bought your mobile on a contract it is physically impossible for you to use another SIM card than the one supplied with the phone.

That will be another incentive for Brits to look at other attractive holiday destinations like Cambodia, Vietnam or Malaysia. What have TAT to say about it ? We know the answer.

[MissAndry]

26 minutes ago, ClutchClark said:

Am I the only person in the entire country who is not breaking some law and afraid of being found?

 Are you the only person in the entire country who doesn't think the nearest foreigner may be blamed for any crime happening in Thailand?

[ClutchClark]

9 minutes ago, seajae said:

if this was being pushed as beneficial to tourists etc most people probably wouldnt be too worried but they are pushing it as being due to crimes being committed by said tourists so they are in fact saying that farangs etc are responsible for all the crime here(nothing unusual there though as they think thais do not commit crime, hahahahaha). With millions of tourists a year, what percentage is actually committing a crime in Thailand, would it be even 1% of them while 99% is committed by thais(many of them higher up in the echelon as well), this is some idiots idea of blaming farangs for all the criminal acts here, face is just too important to some and they cannot admit that  many thais are corrupt and are explicit in most of the criminal acts in the country

 

None of what you say is relevant to this topic.

 

This is about foreigners being assigned GPS trackable SIMs.

 

And they can already track you with cell towers and algorithms to a very close proximity.

[NE1]

As somebody else pointed out , are they going to search every visitor coming in to Swampybum , and if they find a phone make them buy a SIM.

How will they implement this absurd idea ?

 

Edited August 10, 2016 by NE1

[ClutchClark]

3 minutes ago, MissAndry said:

 Are you the only person in the entire country who doesn't think the nearest foreigner may be blamed for any crime happening in Thailand?

 

Whoa.

 

You are one really far out there dude.

 

Do you think they are going to keep a database with the active locations of millions of farang?

 

and then when a crime occurs they are going to find the nearest farang and frame them?

 

Do they do that now? Are they framing farangs who are found in the vicinity of crimes?

 

I enjoy your posts but you are really far out there this time.

[MissAndry]

1 minute ago, NE1 said:

As somebody else pointed out , are they going to search every visitor coming in to Swampybum , and if they find a phone make them buy a SIM.

How will they implement this absurd idea ?

 

 

Give every tourist entering Thailand a free SIM with free internet access for 30 days.

That might just make it workable.

[ClutchClark]

3 minutes ago, NE1 said:

As somebody else pointed out , are they going to search every visitor coming in to Swampybum , and if they find a phone make them buy a SIM.

How will they implement this absurd idea ?

 

 

Again...no...a tourist is free to use their home SIM or not have a phone at all.

 

 

[Winniedapu]

38 minutes ago, Thailand said:

Not being favourably reported on the Chinese social media, they really seem to want to decimate the tourist industry from their main source. 

 

For those of us who think Thailand would benefit from a financial collapse, this is really good news.

 

The more people these dullards can alienate, the better.

 

Winnie

[seajae]

10 minutes ago, ClutchClark said:

 

None of what you say is relevant to this topic.

 

This is about foreigners being assigned GPS trackable SIMs.

 

And they can already track you with cell towers and algorithms to a very close proximity.

yes it is as this is exactly what they have stated, it is so they can catch the criminals more easily, try reading what the govt actually says,

 

"Pongsathorn Chansri, an official from the Ministry, highlighted how beneficial the SIM card would be in apprehending tourists who have committed a crime in Thailand.

 

"It will be helpful if any foreigner comes and commits crimes because, in the past, they have been able to flee or it can be difficult to find them," he said." page 4

 

Edited August 10, 2016 by seajae

[ClutchClark]

4 minutes ago, seajae said:

yes it is as this is exactly what they have stated, it is so they can catch the criminals more easily, try reading what the govt actually says,

 

"Pongsathorn Chansri, an official from the Ministry, highlighted how beneficial the SIM card would be in apprehending tourists who have committed a crime in Thailand.

 

"It will be helpful if any foreigner comes and commits crimes because, in the past, they have been able to flee or it can be difficult to find them," he said." page 4

 

 

Your post rambled on at length about Thais and crime.

 

Which is not relevant.

 

 

[CALSinCM]

"It will be helpful, if any foreigner comes and commit crimes, because in the past they have been able to flee or it can be difficult to find them," said Pongsathorn Chansri, an official in the Ministry of Social Development and Human Security.

And when an evil foreigner commits a crime, and then pulls the SIM card out of their phone and tosses it, why is it that the luminaries of justice think they'll be easier to apprehend?
 

I'm thinking that not a whole lot of thought has been put into the implementation, which leads me to believe as another poster noted that this is probably more about the money that can be generated by manufacturing and selling SIM cards to a 'captured audience.'

[ClutchClark]

10 minutes ago, MissAndry said:

 

Give every tourist entering Thailand a free SIM with free internet access for 30 days.

That might just make it workable.

 

Now you are thinking !

[sixlegs]

I think this guy "up there" is smarter than it seems in most cases. He is most likely preparing for the interregnum for quite some time now and this is just another step. Maybe it is hard to imagine but this can be also beneficial for the tracked tourists because who knows what will happen when that time comes. Everything has to be strongly centralized and under control to keep "things" together. Even if its price is that the number of tourist declines for a few years and the reputation of the country may be a bit worse for some time in the eye of the world. Maybe I just imagine but I see these recent raids on bars and "entertainment" establishments are parts of this process too, weakening the influence of organized crime by cutting off their incomes, to diminish one of the factors that might disturb the order. During the several years before the army took control, the civil society proved that they cannot handle and not ready for solving problems on their own.

[PEE TEE]

Much better if they put ankle tags on us all . 

[JayBird]

Due to how cell phone networks work, this is already do-able:

 

SIM cards are now required to be registered with passport (rule change a year or so ago).

Cell Networks know where the SIM card/phone they are communicating with is (it tends to connect to the nearest tower for communication, so logs will show which one is being connected to).

 

Its not clear to me at least what they plan to do from a technical perspective:

1) Do they want to track a phone that is not using the mobile network (which does not connect to Cell towers) ?

2) Do they want to force the GPS tracking for more 'accurate' location?

 

The issue is less the government tracking your whearabouts.  The real issue is the new software they introduce to your phone to track your wearabouts.  This adds another vector of attack for people to hack into your phone.  It also of course allows unauthorized people to track your location for other non-desirable purposes.

 

 

[ClutchClark]

3 minutes ago, CALSinCM said:

"It will be helpful, if any foreigner comes and commit crimes, because in the past they have been able to flee or it can be difficult to find them," said Pongsathorn Chansri, an official in the Ministry of Social Development and Human Security.

And when an evil foreigner commits a crime, and then pulls the SIM card out of their phone and tosses it, why is it that the luminaries of justice think they'll be easier to apprehend?
 

I'm thinking that not a whole lot of thought has been put into the implementation, which leads me to believe as another poster noted that this is probably more about the money that can be generated by manufacturing and selling SIM cards to a 'captured audience.'

 

Because that foreigner is addicted to his phone and won't be able to gona week without his "fix".

 

What you describe is simply a delay..it is not an evasion.

[Winniedapu]

21 minutes ago, ClutchClark said:

 

Whoa.

 

You are one really far out there dude.

 

Do you think they are going to keep a database with the active locations of millions of farang?

 

and then when a crime occurs they are going to find the nearest farang and frame them?

 

Do they do that now? Are they framing farangs who are found in the vicinity of crimes?

 

I enjoy your posts but you are really far out there this time.

 

Nonono. That's not it at all, that's not the Thai way.

 

First you decide what sounds really cool and hip and stuff, or listen to the boss's rants, and announce it as a policy/initiative.

Then you wonder how to do it, and form a committee to decide because 12 heads are better than just yours, and besides, they get paid and you get 15% of what they get paid.

Then you figure out where the other kickbacks will come from.

Then you allocate lots of dosh from the public purse and deduct the kickbacks at source because, win or lose, you have to get paid.

Then you hand it to under-qualified, under-educated and under-intelligent computer programmers to do it all, in the absence of project plans and project management - all that stuff is only needed by stupid foreigners.

Then it all implodes, gets fecked up and is quietly abandoned. Face is saved all round.

Then you announce that it all worked so well, but was superceded by this shiny new project called <insert name of current wet-dream here>

Then you transfer the kickbacks into your gardener's bank account for safe keeping.

Then you blame the foreigners for &lt;deleted&gt; it up because they didn't understand Thainess.

 

That's the Thai way. All clear now? Splendid.

 

Winnie

Edited August 10, 2016 by Winniedapu

[Taffyfromflint]

4 hours ago, lopburi3 said:

http://time.com/4446059/thailand-tourists-cell-phone-tracking/

There'll be an awful lot of sim cards in the garbage at airports if this comes to be

[sabaii69]

5 hours ago, Father Fintan Stack said:

Here we go...

1984 comes late. No worries as there is a CCTV camera every 5 meters.

[Doznotdiz]

I seriously don't see the problem with this. It is just another way of providing work for the Immigration (Police) Department. They seem intent on filling warehouses with massive amounts of paperwork that nobody ever looks at anyway and this is just more data for them to never look at because I'm sure that it will never be computerised. Long term residents already provide information about their phone numbers, and tourists must have to do the same before they are given a SIM card although they usually leave the country according to immigration rules. How many people are they going to track with this system? Anyone who doesn't want to be found will use social media instead. In the Western World you can't get a phone SIM without providing the ins-and-outs of a duck's arse and going through security procedures a dozen times so what is the problem? 

[JAG]

3 hours ago, webfact said:

Tourist Tracker: Officials tight-lipped on plans to make tourists use location-tracking SIMs

By Coconuts Bangkok

 

Photo: Chinese Tourists/Flickr

 

BANGKOK: -- A proposal by the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) to track tourists’ location with a new kind of SIM card is still being mulled over as they seek the counsel of tourism authorities, tour agents and police.

 

The proposal has already gain the approval of the Ministry of Social Development and Human Security, reported The Nation.

 

Pongsathorn Chansri, an official from the Ministry, highlighted how beneficial the SIM card would be in apprehending tourists who have committed a crime in Thailand.

 

"It will be helpful if any foreigner comes and commits crimes because, in the past, they have been able to flee or it can be difficult to find them," he said.

 

Full story: http://bangkok.coconuts.co/2016/08/10/tourist-tracker-officials-tight-lipped-plans-make-tourists-use-location-tracking-sims

 

-- © Copyright Coconuts Bangkok 2016-08-10

I suppose it would be difficult to find us.

We all look the same you see...

[Japhrodisiac]

With the difficulty various Thai governments have in even tracking say, bags of rice, this like every other plan they come up with will be a massive failure, and they will retract it but not until they have completely pissed off millions of people from around the world. One enduring and primary trait of Thainess is the complete inability to mentally project an outcome from a set of actions. Light a tree on fire and be completely surprised that the forest burns, etc. Look but do not see...