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Thai Immigration Has Yet to Fully Implement Biometrics

Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Thai Immigration and specifically we are discussing biometrics.

I have been reading a lot here recently in the news with respect to the number of criminals that have been apprehended here in the Kingdom, the number of overstayers that have been apprehended and just the increasing volume if you will of arrests and deportations, detainments that have been made at various Immigration checkpoints.  But it is notable that I recently came across some information wherein the Head of the Immigration Police had implied that it had something to do with biometrics but that that wasn't it and biometrics is yet to be fully implemented.  

Why is this important? I think it is important to note because we have not seen exactly how this is going to play out; what exactly this system looks like because the new protocols, the new tools have yet to be fully utilized, is basically my point.  So in a recent article in the Nation, nationmultimedia.com, it is titled Immigration Police Arrest Foreigners for a Variety of Crimes. Now this is worth reading. I urge those watching this video to go ahead and read this article and there is like half a dozen people that go through here that have been arrested for various things. That being said, at the end of the article was this information and I quote: "Sompong",  that is referring to the new Head of Thai Immigration,  "Sompong also said at the press conference that the biometric technology at International Airports was not yet fully linked and Immigration Police still had to use other detection methods. He expected the biometric system and all related records should be effectively applied at check points by August.” So we are making this video in July, so that is basically a month away. Let's go ahead and presume it is the end of August, so maybe six weeks. I am not noting this to particularly make an issue of this other than to say we have yet to see exactly what the capabilities are going to be of Immigration moving forward. These biometric technologies are really powerful, they are very effective. The digitization and the interlinking of the Immigration apparatus which basically, up until a couple of years ago wasn't really much interlinked at all, and is now becoming interlinked to the point at which it is becoming really almost kind of frightening to watch it as a person that has to deal with the system on a rather regular basis. It is actually rather amazing for lack of better term. It is amazing how fast this technology can allow the system to react to what is going on, on an “on the ground level” in a practical manner if you will. 

So the thing to take away from this video, the Head of Immigration himself is noting that "hey, yes we have improved substantially with respect to Immigration enforcement but we haven't even gotten to the point where our system is fully operational, so it remains to be seen exactly what the Immigration apparatus is going to look like in Thailand. We will keep you updated as things progress with respect to that issue on this channel so stay tuned.