Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing "Digital ID Cards" here in Thailand. What are we talking about? Well I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Government readies phone app digital IDs. Quoting directly: "The Government will start using a Digital ID Card through a mobile application on January 10 for people who use Public Services provided by Government Agencies. The digital ID will apply to agencies under the internal Affairs Ministry first and then expanded to other Government and private agencies, such as commercial banks, Deputy government spokeswoman Traisuree Taisaranakul said on Monday."

So what is going on here is, so there is the Thai ID Card which is it kind of the key document really the Tabian Baan, the house book is sort of the underlying key document, but then day to day your key identity document is your Thai ID card and that has got a whole bunch of documentation sort of incorporated into the chip that is in the card itself. Now what apparently they are doing is creating its equivalent which can go on people's smartphones and then you can just use that to interact with the Government, when you want to interact with the Government. I understand the convenience side of this, I truly, truly do. I am not trying to be a Luddite or just contrarian for contrarianism’s sake, that is not my point in making these videos, but honestly this has some pretty chilling possible implications. I mean when you have an ID that you interact with the Government on and that is sort of like you in the digital space, I find that really concerning for a number of different reasons. Now look I understand we have kind of left the paper age although maybe tell some of the Thai Bureaucracy that because they are certainly churning through more paper, probably enough paper to kill a rainforest somewhere but the point I am trying to make without trying to be snarky about it is moving over to these digital systems, it's not as simple as it seems. And there is more to it than I think people really, really think about. I mean how far away are we from China's Social Credit System with this? How far away are we truly? I mean could it be implemented 48 hours after everybody has a Digital ID? Would that be all that outside the realm of possibility?

I am not saying I have the answer to these questions, I am just saying it concerns me and I don't think folks are really looking at the long-term implications of for example digitizing all their identity document and then only interacting with the Government through sort of a digital media. We have seen this a lot with banking. If all banking went digital, what stops the bank from just saying "yeah I am not giving you your money" and you are out in the middle of nowhere; you are relying on that phone or on that ATM card or on whatever other digital item you might have to provide you with what kind of amounts to the coupons you need to live your life basically. I am not trying to belittle money or anything but just looking at it just from a purely logical perspective, I mean that is the situation. This is a digital machine or a digital system that essentially gives you back your own money because you don't want to carry around your life savings on you for fear that somebody hits you over the head and steals that but there is a happy medium here. Full digital is way on an extreme side of the spectrum; again obviously thinking that we are going to go back to paper and the analog world, I think that that is pretty naïve as well I don't think that that is ever going to happen. I think keeping an eye on this digital stuff and realizing that there is some benefit to keeping certain things analog, I think that would be a good paradigm to maintain into the future. Now whether that happens or not remains to be seen.