Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing, well we are discussing the Immigration Bureau data systems. I thought of making this video after reading a recent and a rather sad article from Thai Examiner, that is thaiexaminer.com, the article is titled: Overstaying Belgian man shot himself in the head in Phuket on Tuesday, third suicide in 2 weeks. Again, the thrust of that article is going in a different direction from what we are talking about here in this video. I urge those who are watching this video go check out that article in detail. As usual Thai Examiner goes into great depth with regard to this issue, and it is a really tragic story, it is really sad. We have done another video on that specifically. Quoting directly: "Man who lived in a rented property in Phuket was facing arrest and deportation from Thailand after receiving a 90-day overstay notice from police." Quoting further: "This put Mr. (Name redacted) in imminent danger of being detained by police authorities both in Phuket and across the Kingdom because of Immigration Bureau Data Systems."

What they are saying here is in the past, when everything was sort of on an analog system, the sort of paperwork system of Thai immigration, and I remember this roughly the first 7, 8 years I was here, they were utilizing the analog system, everything was done on paper. Yeah it was really difficult to know when a foreigner was on overstay and if that person was on overstay for example in Phuket, if they happened to be moving around the country and they were up in Chiang Mai, Chiang Mai Immigration would be unaware that that person was on overstay, at all, let alone would Phuket coordinate with Chiang Mai and say "hey this person is in overstay, you may want to be on the lookout."

Immigration databases have massively improved since the time just I've been here the last 15 years. A big component of that is so-called biometrics. People coming into and out of the country have to run their fingerprints, facial recognition, I think even in certain circumstances even retinal scanning might be undertaken. This is a major sea change in terms of the documentation associated with Immigration and their ability to share it in real time. For this reason, for those who are looking to come to Thailand, it is a very, very good idea to assiduously stay on top of your Immigration status and make sure to continue to maintain your Immigration status because failure to maintain one’s status can result in a situation where you fall into overstay and that could result in a situation where you could be deported and subsequently even blacklisted for a prolonged period of time or even indefinitely blacklisted from the Kingdom of Thailand.