Foreigners must still fill in ‘TM6’ immigration form for security reasons

[stephen tracy]

6 minutes ago, Shaunduhpostman said:

Nothing like being informed in advance three times or so in one week about something you'll have to do that in fact you have been required to do all along and been doing all along. Is it not bad enough that we have to do it that we now also have to be reminded that we will have to fulfill the rather trivial requirement daily in the news? It's kind of like they really want to say something else but just don't know how to say it and we are supposed to figure it out what it is they are really trying to say with this "news" item appearing again and again and again.

 

BUt if we just take this at face value that there is nothing else they are trying to tell us, one has to ask Is it really such an issue? Is there something I just don't grasp here? Should I like try and take a month long summer course at the Sorbonne on how to fill in Thailand's TM6 to a superb and perfect level?

 

Or maybe it would be enough if I just work a few hours a day everyday for the next few months on my penmanship and do independent research to confirm the accuracy and validity of information I will be asked to furnish on arrival in Thailand, such things I have always just assumed were correct and accurate such as my address and my name. Tho, I suppose if we go to a foreign country we should be open minded enough to consider that such things as our name and address may not be what we thought they were. Perhaps what they have in mind here, is that they would like us to be better prepared to fill out that form when it comes time to do so.

No, they have nothing in mind apart from saving face as usual. And try waiting 5 hours in a queue with young kids that need a piss before commenting. It's an international tourist hub, and promotes itself as one, so you'd expect a slightly better level of processing time. If other countries can do it  so can Thailand.... then again, perhaps not.

[tandor]

10 hours ago, Somtamnication said:

Bad bad foreigners.

...now Thai passengers get their luggage, do customs and taxis way ahead of us.

[tandor]

10 hours ago, rooster59 said:

In response to criticism that travellers to several European countries do not require such a form, the immigration chief said those countries require travellers to apply for a visa before entering, which provides all their details. “Their authorities know in advance whom they allow to enter their countries,” he said. 

...well in this modern world so affected by terrorism..why cannot there be a central agency, say UN funded or Interpol controlled who are given access to the passenger manifest and vet all international flights before they arrive..after all the passenger's Passport has been scanned at their departure point and the 8+ flight time would be ample time to know who is who ..my two bobs worth !

[Bundooman]

"The Immigration Bureau is in the process of amending the immigration law to exempt Thais from filling in the TM6 form, because basic information of Thai citizens is available on their passport". 

 

So Thais have information about them on their passports, but foreigner passports do not  have information about them available on theirs?

 

Nonsense!

[SGD]

I have said for decades that the only reason this procedure exists is graft between some family connected firm who supplies these TM6 cards and a member of whatever body decides to purchase them.

 

Where do they go ?

 

Burned, dumped, stored. Who knows or cares.

[siam2007]

Malaysian immigration, where such forms are history since many years, are having a good laugh.

Indonesia stopped using printed forms too now.

Thailand is again the backwater of Asia and desperately flying the stick-in-the-mud flag

[Negita43]

Shaunduhpostman

 

Absolutely confused by your post.

 

Of course I always complete a TM6 arrival card ( and departure when I leave). BUT I have never then been to immigration in my area to confirm where I am living until 90 days after my entry visa stamp. (and if you recall the TM6 does ask you where you are staying).

 

In any case, say I arrive back in Bangkok at 11pm stay in a hotel and the next day travel to where I live by bus which gets me there after immigration in my area has closed?? Am I subject to arrest for not complying?

 

 

[brewsterbudgen]

TM30? Strange, never done it and was never asked to do it at the IO.

Perhaps you're not on a long-stay visa ?
 
There are numerous threads on it, they began enforcing it a year or more ago, and these days it's difficult/impossible to get an annual-extension (mine's by-reason-of retirement) unless your landlord/wife has done a TM28 and registered you as an alien, living at your long-term home-address.
 
Mine got fined the usual B1600 for not having done so.
 
You then get a TM30, which is stapled (like a TM6) in your passport, and return to your local IO within a few days(they don't currently insist on 24-hours) to report you're home again, they date-stamp your having reported once again, on the slip in your passport.
 
 

The TM30 form is not required in Bangkok, so many people never have to complete it.

[chama]

If tourism truly is important to Thailand's economy this is one area that should be improved so visitors are impressed from the start rather than jaded on how the Kingdom treats them. For all the other efforts in place to increase tourism this seems like an easy fix that would probably go unnoticed once in place but sure is an irritant for travelers in its current state. Also seems to set the tone for tourist to be treated as second class which can be felt in several forms (like pricing differences at several sites, cab experiences when cabbies won't pick them up etc) which people will discuss with friends and contacts upon their return home. Thailand has many things to offer tourist but there are many things that are simple fixes that would improve their visit and would in turn increase tourism revenues. 

[Jangot]

Just now, siam2007 said:

Malaysian immigration, where such forms are history since many years, are having a good laugh.

Indonesia stopped using printed forms too now.

Thailand is again the backwater of Asia and desperately flying the stick-in-the-mud flag

As a UK passport holder, I have to fill out an arrival/departure card, similar to the Thai one, to enter Singapore, Hong Kong and China.

[michaellee]

They should learn from Macau. Macau had a similar situation of overwhelming immigration problem, they have removed the forms from all nationalities never had an security threat to the country. Why do you need the forms when its already been scanned into the computer and can still track you down. Duhhhh!!!

[BangkokNicky]

2 hours ago, tandor said:

...well in this modern world so affected by terrorism..why cannot there be a central agency, say UN funded or Interpol controlled who are given access to the passenger manifest and vet all international flights before they arrive..after all the passenger's Passport has been scanned at their departure point and the 8+ flight time would be ample time to know who is who ..my two bobs worth !

They have a modern airport too yet they force people use and old airport for domestic flights just imagine what the staff at the old airport could be doing at the new airport plus the revenue they could make from the land could easily sort out and bring it much up to date with the airport they already built  ..anywhere else in the world they would have done this but not here it's all tits up even when you look at gov house near the old airport that looks nice with what they have done with all the gov departments in one building ..  

Edited August 12, 2017 by BangkokNicky

[wvavin]

So many forms filled and .......... do they understand or able to read?

[tryasimight]

7 hours ago, cumgranosalus said:

"For Thailand, the form is important as it is the tool for us to get and keep information about foreign visitors when they stay in Thailand"

 

perhaps they should find another tool? my passport is digital with a chip for a start.

Is the chip encoded with the address you are staying at?

[curlylekan]

"In response to criticism that travellers to several European countries do not require such a form, the immigration chief said those countries require travellers to apply for a visa before entering, which provides all their details. “Their authorities know in advance whom they allow to enter their countries,” he said."

 

I find this interesting. I am from the USA, but I am in Europe now. I did not have to fill out a card. I even traveled outside the Schengen zone while I've been here and then back inside, still no card to fill out. They've asked what I'm doing and maybe how many days, but they've never known me in advance and they don't have all my details. They have a system that is set-up well to deal with massive amounts of tourists and it is extremely quick. I hope one day the system in the USA will become as quick. He should truly look into how other countries handle their immigration before making a broad, very general, sweeping statement like that

 

My personal thought is Thailand should embrace the digital future more and it will help with immigration.

[tryasimight]

6 hours ago, khwaibah said:

1998 Saudi Arabia had the same dark age belief and system. 1999 they came into the 21st. century and did away with their arrival cards. It had something to do with that new fangled contraption called the computer and their desire and ability to learn. Thailand your still in the dark ages.

Yes, Saudi Arabia is well known for its modern world , progressive policies.

I'll take Thailand and a bit of hassle with paperwork......you can keep Saudi Arabia and everything that goes with it.

[tryasimight]

5 hours ago, Sydebolle said:

All the relevant security data are found in the passport these days. Apart from machine readable two-liners many passports these days have a biometric chip. This is sufficient for Europe as they just store the passport details. 

Unless the visa features also machine-readable two liners it is not traceable, which embassy/consulate issued the relevant visa. The information on the TM6 is nothing but a repetition of what is written in the passport. The reference if first time/repeated visitor, visa number, length of stay and place of stay are - in all fairness - not traceable during the short stay of the average tourist. Putting the "Oriental" as the place they stay does not mean that they stay there - impossible to check on short notice - same with length of stay (as the duration permit is granted according to passport/visa) - hence the Tourism helms would have to manually process those 30 million TM6 forms - go figure! 

Given the many visa types Thailand has, combined with the huge span width of visa-free admission (zero to ninety days), it remains a real challenge for the Somchais behind the immigration counters to decipher the TM6, given the fact that hand writings are in many cases almost illegible, specially if the airplane was on a bumpy inbound track. 

Some countries still use these cards. The immigration swipes the passport or, if done, the visa stripe through the machine to establish the record; a photo is taken and the card is scanned with a bar code. All three appear on the screen of the immigration officer with a green tick or a red cross. Latter is the result from a database the Thai immigration has (or not). On departure the card/passport/photo is taken again, the computer verifies the bar code again and shows a green tick for ok or a red cross meaning "check for something". But yeah, you need a will to please the local needs as well as not keeping money spending tourists in queues longer than most flights from within Asia.

There were notices requiring you to put the hotel phone number on the form plastered around immigration, so they could, if deemed necessary, check at short notice. I can't recall if they were still there last week.

[tryasimight]

4 hours ago, phantomfiddler said:

I would love to do a bit of travelling, but the prospect of being stuck in an immigration line for 5 hours terrifies me. Is there some way that the elderly (74+yrs) can get through a little faster ? I went to a booth over to the right after being informed that this was the place but, true to form, there was no-one manning the station !

Fly First Class

In reality phantom the wait they are talking about is quite unusual...an anomaly. I've been through Suvarnabhumi 20 or  more times in the last 2 years and only once was there a significant delay. I mean more than one hour.

Lets put this into perspective. The taxi ride into town took longer than the flight from Myanmar and the wait at immigration.

Don't let this thread get you down old mate...they will look after you.

Edited August 12, 2017 by tryasimight

[tryasimight]

4 hours ago, Shaunduhpostman said:

Nothing like being informed in advance three times or so in one week about something you'll have to do that in fact you have been required to do all along and been doing all along. Is it not bad enough that we have to do it that we now also have to be reminded that we will have to fulfill the rather trivial requirement daily in the news? It's kind of like they really want to say something else but just don't know how to say it and we are supposed to figure it out what it is they are really trying to say with this "news" item appearing again and again and again.

 

BUt if we just take this at face value that there is nothing else they are trying to tell us, one has to ask Is it really such an issue? Is there something I just don't grasp here? Should I like try and take a month long summer course at the Sorbonne on how to fill in Thailand's TM6 to a superb and perfect level?

 

Or maybe it would be enough if I just work a few hours a day everyday for the next few months on my penmanship and do independent research to confirm the accuracy and validity of information I will be asked to furnish on arrival in Thailand, such things I have always just assumed were correct and accurate such as my address and my name. Tho, I suppose if we go to a foreign country we should be open minded enough to consider that such things as our name and address may not be what we thought they were. Perhaps what they have in mind here, is that they would like us to be better prepared to fill out that form when it comes time to do so.

Fair chance your name will be the same. Not so sure about your address though. Will you still be staying at 1, The Green , Hemel Hempstead Surin?

[tryasimight]

3 hours ago, SGD said:

I have said for decades that the only reason this procedure exists is graft between some family connected firm who supplies these TM6 cards and a member of whatever body decides to purchase them.

 

Where do they go ?

 

Burned, dumped, stored. Who knows or cares.

And have been wrong for decades according to posts on another thread where it says the police department print their own forms.

[tryasimight]

1 hour ago, BangkokNicky said:

They have a modern airport too yet they force people use and old airport for domestic flights just imagine what the staff at the old airport could be doing at the new airport plus the revenue they could make from the land could easily sort out and bring it much up to date with the airport they already built  ..anywhere else in the world they would have done this but not here it's all tits up even when you look at gov house near the old airport that looks nice with what they have done with all the gov departments in one building ..  

The old and the new airport are both domestic and international airports. As are many other airports in Thailand.

Edited August 12, 2017 by tryasimight

[ksamuiguy]

Arriving visitor scans passport in reader, printer prints out ??? on the card, visitor signs card (?why), visitor fills in address where they are staying.

 

I never understood why the airline doesn't do this, they know where they are going and the rules, they have all the equipment and can easily print out a filled in landing card as part of the boarding pass procedure.

Resource abound but no one uses them.

[Ricardo]

10 hours ago, BangkokNicky said:

They have a modern airport too yet they force people use and old airport for domestic flights just imagine what the staff at the old airport could be doing at the new airport plus the revenue they could make from the land could easily sort out and bring it much up to date with the airport they already built  ..anywhere else in the world they would have done this but not here it's all tits up even when you look at gov house near the old airport that looks nice with what they have done with all the gov departments in one building ..  

 

Just a couple of points  ...

 

1.  Swampy is already way-over-capacity, which is why they're about a year into building an extension-terminal, so no posssibility to transfer Don Muang's business across right now.  The dedicated LCC-terminal announced in 2006, roughly when Swampy first opened, was never actually built, hence the transfer several years back of most LCC-flights back to the old airport.

 

2.  Swampy does however also have some domestic-flights for connecting to international, mainly Thai & Thai-Smile & Bangkok Airways, but recently a few by Viet-Jet.  So you're not forced to transfer between DMK & BKK, in order to connect, if you're willing to pay more for a more-expensive airline.

 

3.  Don Muang is mainly low-cost airlines, and mainly domestic, but does also have international-flights so you can connect-through with people like Air Asia.  However it's also been getting a lot of the new cheap-charter flights, from places like China, hence the rapid build-up which appears to have flummoxed Immigration-planners.

[elgenon]

Are they processing foreign tourists in the empty lines (booths) on the Thai side? Way too many for just the Thais

[melvinmelvin]

3 minutes ago, elgenon said:

Are they processing foreign tourists in the empty lines (booths) on the Thai side? Way too many for just the Thais

 

now and then I see that they do that

 

 

[Pilotman]

9 hours ago, curlylekan said:

"In response to criticism that travellers to several European countries do not require such a form, the immigration chief said those countries require travellers to apply for a visa before entering, which provides all their details. “Their authorities know in advance whom they allow to enter their countries,” he said."

 

I find this interesting. I am from the USA, but I am in Europe now. I did not have to fill out a card. I even traveled outside the Schengen zone while I've been here and then back inside, still no card to fill out. They've asked what I'm doing and maybe how many days, but they've never known me in advance and they don't have all my details. They have a system that is set-up well to deal with massive amounts of tourists and it is extremely quick. I hope one day the system in the USA will become as quick. He should truly look into how other countries handle their immigration before making a broad, very general, sweeping statement like that

 

My personal thought is Thailand should embrace the digital future more and it will help with immigration.

you make my point for me, you just wandered around without any real checks on who you are or what you are doing.  While you are no doubt a fine fellow, the world is full of people that are not.  They need tracking, fact of life in 2017.  The Thais are at least trying. All power to them. 

[curlylekan]

8 minutes ago, Pilotman said:

you make my point for me, you just wandered around without any real checks on who you are or what you are doing.  While you are no doubt a fine fellow, the world is full of people that are not.  They need tracking, fact of life in 2017.  The Thais are at least trying. All power to them. 

What about all the other people who come to Europe and are able to travel like me. Why do we need to track everyone. Does your government and the government of where you are know where you are at any moment. Does continuous tracking me you feel safer and more at peace with life? Even more important, who's to say that there are no real checks on me where I am. The digital progress of Europe in terms of immigration is pretty good at knowing people.

 

I will give power to the Thai's often, love them to the highest, but why do people need tracking?

[Bangyo1948]

Is it really necessary for them to take your picture?

 

A biometric passport, also known as an e-passport or ePassport, is a combined paper and electronic passport (hence the e-, as in e-mail) that contains biometric information that can be used to authenticate the identity of travelers. It uses contactless smart card technology, including a microprocessor chip (computer chip) and antenna (for both power to the chip and communication) embedded in the front or back cover, or center page, of the passport. Document and chip characteristics are documented in the International Civil Aviation Organisation's (ICAO) Doc 9303.[1][2][3] The passport's critical information is both printed on the data page of the passport and stored in the chip. Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) is used to authenticate the data stored electronically in the passport chip making it virtually impossible to forge when all security mechanisms are fully and correctly implemented.

 

The currently standardized biometrics used for this type of identification system are facial recognition, fingerprint recognition, and iris recognition. These were adopted after assessment of several different kinds of biometrics including retinal scan. The ICAO defines the biometric file formats and communication protocols to be used in passports. Only the digital image (usually in JPEG or JPEG2000 format) of each biometric feature is actually stored in the chip. The comparison of biometric features is performed outside the passport chip by electronic border control systems (e-borders). To store biometric data on the contactless chip, it includes a minimum of 32 kilobytes of EEPROM storage memory, and runs on an interface in accordance with the ISO/IEC 14443 international standard, amongst others. These standards ensure interoperability between different countries and different manufacturers of passport books.

[sfokevin]

20 hours ago, trainman34014 said:

Wrong; the requirement is to report within 7 days.  The 24hrs is a written rule that is not acted upon.

 

Said the man who is 1,600 baht poorer... 

[cumgranosalus]

10 hours ago, tryasimight said:

Is the chip encoded with the address you are staying at?

My passport and visa both are linked to my Thai address as part of my  visa and work permit allocation and 90 day cycle - they don't need any more than my passport number to get all that info.

 Most tourists either don't know or change their address - the point is they are gathering information they don't need. It is a characteristic of military regimes that they become obsessed with gathering information.....to the point where there is actually too much to physically filter analyse or comprehend.

 this is why other countries find this process unnecessary.