Strict regulations will be taken up in the coming months in Thailand in order to buy a sim card. The country tries a new method to curb electronic fraud.
the new system of fingerprints and face scans will begin on the 15th of December, according to the telecoms regulators. The biometric system is already followed in Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.
“We’re entering the digital age, our money now is linked to mobile services. By doing this, trust in mobile banking or payment systems will be improved,” said Takorn Tantasith, secretary-general of the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC).
This method ensures the privacy of the users and uses of fake ids to buy a sim card will be reduced.
Thailand launched a pilot scheme in June in its insurgency-torn ‘Deep South’, where ethnic Malay rebels have used mobile phones to trigger bombs.
“After a trial in the most concerned areas of the country, people liked it, especially the security officials,” Korkij Danchaivichit, the NBTC’s secretary-general.
The lack of regulation in Thailand’s SIM card market was highlighted in June when police arrested three Chinese men who had managed to buy nearly 400,000 Thai SIM cards for a “click farm” operation. The trio told officers they were hired by Chinese companies to boost “likes” for a number of products through the hundreds of smartphones they had hooked up to a computer.
The face and fingerprint scans will be matched to government data linked to Thai national ID cards.
Tourists will also be required to have face-scans checked against their passport photos.
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