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Thailand’s Sim Card Tracking Scheme – A 12-Point Guide for Tourists

The National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission's (NBTC) plans to boost national security by approving in principle a plan to issue special sim cards to foreign tourists so they can be tracked via their mobile phones.

As well as visa overstayers, the NBTC said it could also be used to find those on the run from police.

 “It will be helpful, if any foreigner comes and commit crimes, because in the past they have been able to flee or it can be difficult to find them,” said Pongsathorn Chansri, an official in the Ministry of Social Development and Human Security.

Unsurprisingly I've received a fair few questions on this and, while it hasn't come into force yet, I've put together a Q&A guide for tourists worried about what this means for their trip.

true-move-tourist-sim-card-tracking

Surely a scheme like this would mean horrid queues after a long-haul flight.

1. Why is Thailand considering tracking tourists with a special sim card?

The commission’s secretary general, Thakorn Tanthasit, has said that the plan would not only help catch terrorists and criminals but also help find travelers who were in trouble or had gone missing.

2. What about those on work permits or long-stay visas?

The proposal is aimed at tourists only. It was initially said it would cover everyone, but a rethink means it will now exclude those working in Thailand and those on long stay visas.

3. When does this scheme come into effect?

The proposed launch is January 2017; though opposition to the scheme is likely to push the deadline back. There's a possibility it might be scrapped due to impracticalities relating to enforcement, but for now consider it going ahead, 

4. Don't the authorities already have the capability to track mobile phones?

Yes. As in most countries of the world, if the Thai authorities want to track the phone of a specific person, or gain access to phone records, they can.

Put it this way, if you use international roaming in Thailand, you can be traced from the time you touch down, right through your journey.

But! They need a court order to track a phone. No court order, no tracking. The same rule will apply to this sim scheme. So in short, they will only track you if they need to.

5. Why are they doing this all of a sudden?

Actually, this is more of a progression than something new. If you live in Thailand, you'll know that last year everyone with an unregistered SIM card had to get it registered before a certain date, otherwise it would expire. This initiative sought to match numbers to residents and therefore improve security intelligence.

The problem is that people can get around the registering of a SIM card with fake details and documents. The new scheme will enable authorities to track every single tourist at source, right up until they leave.

Generally, it is considered that those on a long stay visa are more trackable than tourists; because they should be living at a permanent, registered address, registered at a workplace / doing 90-day reporting of some kind. Of course we know that in reality this isn't always the case.

thailand tourist sim tracking

Tourist sim cards are readily available on arrival, but not compulsory. Will this be the case in 2017?

6. Will I be required to buy this new SIM card when I arrive in Thailand, and what network will it be on

The SIM card will presumably be issued on arrival. No fee has been announced yet.

I'd imagine you'll be able to choose the network — True and DTAC already have stands at both airports, and all major operators already offer “tourist packages”. I can't see how they would give just one operator the contract on the new sim cards; that would be anti-competitive and cause uproar in the business community.

AIS, the country’s leading mobile phone service provider, said it would be “happy to comply” with the plan if it helped to ensure national stability. It noted the existing requirement for everyone, Thai and foreigner alike, to register when buying a sim card.

7. But couldn't I just throw away my sim and use international roaming instead?

Yes, but as mentioned previously, they can just as easily track you on international roaming anyway. This may also be a violation of the terms.

Although, Poomjit Sirawongprasert, the president of Thai Hosting Service Providers Club and a strong advocate of free speech online, described the plan as useless, especially if it was meant to help capture criminals or terrorists. “The use of roaming sims from other countries, or having a Thai citizen buy a card for a foreigner, could easily evade monitoring,” she said.

8. Can't I just put the sim card in my phone and then turn off data roaming?

It wouldn't be effective. The NBTC said the special Sim cards would come with tracking enabled, which the user could not turn off.

9. But doesn't it violate my human rights to be forced to use a sim card I don't want to use?

Quite possibly, yes, and that's why the scheme may not go ahead. Pressure from overseas governments and rights organisations may say this is a step too far.

10. What does this mean for my privacy?

The authorities will know where you are at all times. I mean, it's not like someone is going to be tracking you on a radar, but if you're a “person of interest” then you will be subject to “listening in”.

The thing though is this: Like in any other country, Thailand has the capability to track you down if they want. People like to say Thailand is a big snooper, but in reality Thailand is way behind the US and the UK and, in fact, it is the US that has put pressure on Thailand to be more efficient in spying. 

But let me be clear here: This isn't actually about spying, but rather the ability to track somebody quicker if they need to. Let's say a known criminal enters Thailand as a tourist. A foreign authority calls Thailand to let them know he is on the loose. If he has the sim, he can be picked up immediately.

11. What? It wouldn't take much for a hardened criminal to circumvent this!

Not my idea! Go figure.

12. Is there any way around this, if it doesn't come into effect?

Some will say the old line; “If you have nothing to hide then what are you afraid of.” I don't buy that. It's important we don't let our freedom become strategically eroded over time and manipulated into a new definition.

We should endeavor to fully understand what the implications are and whether a security measure is really going to be that effective before we roll over and succumb.

Potentially, you could become untraceable using a VPN — installed on your mobile. This would make it appear as if you were in another location. You can read my post on this here. But in my humble opinion, I don't think this scheme is going to happen, or at least not in the currently proposed format.

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  2. Martin1 says

    Well, I work in IT and I was thinking about this announcement technically.

    I came to the conclusion this that is 100 % pure bovine feces. ;-)
    There is just no way to add some device or antenna onto the SIM card which could contact an (government) antenna.

    What they could do is to reserve a special number set (like +66 99 ...) for use only by tourists and track the GPS data generated from them, or to instruct the mobile service providers to track other numbers issued to foreigners.
    In addition they could track non-Thai (i.e. roaming) SIM cards.

    Another Orwell'arian approach would be to require all foreigners to register their resp. mobile numbers. :-///
    And a last one: To give foreigners SIM cards that register only at some sort of virtual network, and to track all of them.
    Reply

    • Ken says

      It seems as if you may have somehow misinterpreted the article. Furthermore, although you work in IT, it seems as if you may also not be very familiar with the basics of how cellular networks operate.

      So, just to clarify things, we are not talking about any new technology here. After all, we have had the technology to track people’s location through their cell phones for well over a decade now. And this new program simply seems to be a way of ensuring that all foreign tourist entering Thailand have a registered SIM card in their phones and one which identifies them on the system as such. And naturally once the system knows which active SIM cards belong to these tourists you can use this data in a variety of ways at some point down the road as technology allows. For example you could someday set up the system so that an alarm goes off somewhere when a cell phone is still active on the system after its user’s visa has expired and therefore he should no longer even be in the country. Then they could use the phones GPS data to track the user down. For this to work however all visas would have to be electronically entered into the system upon arrival and I seriously doubt that they currently have this capability at every border crossing and airport in Thailand. Also, it seems to me that there would be too many false alarms with such a system. For example if you decide to give your phone and SIM to a friend before leaving the country then the immigration police might end up wasting a lot of time looking for you when you are no longer even in the country.

      Realistically speaking though, this data would likely only be used when a person is already suspected of overstaying his visa or committing some other criminal act. After all, even if the Thai government decided to go all “1984” on our asses (doubtful), they simply do not have the resources to keep tabs on even a tiny fraction of all the tourist who come through the country every year.

      In any case, at this point in time, it sounds to me like the Thai government is simply trying to eliminate the use of unregistered cellular phones (at least among foreigners). And I’m not really sure how that could be considered to be a bad thing. Here in the States we can still buy unregistered prepaid cell phones of course, and when these are purchased with the intent of using them for a short time and then discarding them they are known as “burners”. And while there are certainly plenty of legitimate reasons to buy a burner phone they are used primarily by criminals. By the way, a burner phone can still be tracked in some cases if the police someone find out what your phone number is (say by capturing one of your criminal associates and finding the number in his phone list). But the whole point of a burner phone to a criminal is that he can discard it after a certain amount of time and get a new one before the police learn his previous phone number.

      Anyway I have no problem with a country wanting to eliminate the use of unregistered cell phones, and I don’t even have a problem with that registration info identifying them as tourists. If it identified them by their race or socioeconomic background, etc. then I would certainly have a problem with it. But there is nothing wrong with having the system be able to identify who is a citizen or permanent resident and who is simply a temporary guest in your country. In fact, this is not all that much different from having to wear a visitors badge when entering certain high security buildings when you are not an employee there. It makes perfect sense to me as it could someday greatly aid the immigration authorities in doing their jobs and ensuring that people do not overstay their visas. Although I know a lot of westerners these days seem to think they have this unalienable right to live in whatever country they choose and for as long as they choose regardless of the immigration laws of that country.

      Back to the article though, I did find one possible error when re-reading it just now, and this has to do with the use of a VPN to hide your identity. The problem is that a VPN only hides your Internet identity and location (IP address), but the police do not go through your Internet connection when tracking your phone and its GPS data. When any cell phone connects to the system through a cell tower it is only able to do so because the system recognizes its unique IMSI number (usually stored on the SIM, but not always) as being valid and active on that system. And this number of course also tells the system who you are - at least when you have a normal registered cell phone. Anyway the system identifies you (and your GPS location) long before the point at which you are routed off to your Internet connection. And when the police want to track you down by your phone (for example when you call 911) this is the point at which they tap into the system. Basically your Internet service has nothing to do with it and therefore a VPN is of no use in this particular situation. Or at least this is true with the old GSM, TDMA, and CDMA systems. And even though I realize that most people use their phones primarily as an internet terminal these days I seriously doubt if the basic cell phone electronic registration process has changed much since I was working in the industry over ten years ago. We are still all basically accessing the Internet through a cellular phone connection and it’s that phone connection and its registration data which is used to identify and track us.

      If you are accessing the internet exclusively by Wi-Fi however and you could somehow keep your phone’s cellular transmitter turned off, then I guess a VPN might indeed make it more difficult for someone to track you down. Once your phone connects to a cell tower however the system immediately knows who and where you are (assuming you are using your own phone). And even if you were to permanently disable the GPS on your phone the police could still roughly triangulate you position just based on info from the cell towers, possibly to within a block or so in some cases.
      Reply

  3. Ken says

    When I first read the title of this article my first thought was “I really don’t like the sound of that at all”. It just seemed like such a shocking invasion of privacy. But after thinking about for a few more seconds I calmed right down. After all, they are only going to track someone if they have a reason to. For example if I overstay my visa. Its not like they are going to have a room full of people constantly keeping an eye on the whereabouts of every single tourist in Thailand every moment of the day. So, while I still don't like the idea, I'm also not going to go into panic mode if it happens?

    I am curious however what you mean by “tracking”. Do you mean using the phones GPS to pinpoint my exact location? I know that all phones in the USA have been required to have GPS built in since about 2005. Of course you can set up the phone up to block anybody with the exception of the police and emergency service from tracking you. But are all phones sold in Thailand also GPS capable these days? And do they even care what kind of phone I have when I enter the country?

    The thing is, a few years ago after I found I no longer really needed a data plan that much anymore I ditched my iphone and went back to using my old Motorola A1200. I like the fact that it’s a flip phone but is still also a full feature smart phone with a touch screen. Anyway, since it was never made for the American market it has no GPS so if they want to track me they will only be able to get my general location by finding out which cell tower I’m pinging off of. Not that it really matters since I do not plan on doing anything illegal.

    As for what Bryan said, well, the corruption in Thailand would definitely make me worry more about this kind of thing over there than it would here in the United States. But still what kind of “data” is he talking about. I don’t think that having access to the phones GPS coordinates means that you also have access to personal data actually stored in the phone itself. I haven’t really been keeping up on the tech since I left the industry 10 years ago though so I can’t say for sure.
    Reply

    • TheThailandLife says

      You make a good point Ken. I would presume that the capabilities of the phone wouldn't matter, because as we know most criminals deliberately use cheap phones without data roaming for the very reason that they only want to be able to make calls and not have location tracking on, for example. All the NBTC has said is "special" sim card. So I think these cards will have some kind of chip that can be located by a central system, for tracking and "listening in" purposes.

      A lot of the media outlets have been hyping this up to cause a storm over privacy, but in fact this is just an extension of existing capabilities, and a court order would still be required to start the tracking process anyway. That doesn't mean we shouldn't be concerned, but it is good to know that Thailand still has a legal process in place to protect privacy, and that a court is required to approve spying/tracking.

      The key question for me is how practical is this? Can it really work efficiently? And would it be effective in any way?
      Reply

      • Ken says

        I totally agree that this is just an extension of existing capabilities. In fact I worked for a cellular service provider many years ago and even back then before GPS phones I had access to a system to track customers by cell towers. If I had wanted to I could have easily tracked the general whereabouts of some of our celebrity customers like Pamela Anderson or Josh Brolins, to name a few.

        Actually the capabilities of the phone are very relevant to tracking however. If a phone has no GPS receiver your exact location cannot be tracked no matter what kind of SIM is in the phone and no matter if you have a data plan or not. Without GPS the system only knows which cell tower your are using at any given time. This can narrow down the general area you are in but it cannot tell your exact location. In other words if the phone does not know exactly where it is then they cannot know where you are either. And the phone only knows where it is if it is GPS enabled. I suppose if you were using your phones WiFi however they might somehow be able to find out which hotspot you were using and thereby track you down. Of course your phone is always trying to find the tower with the best signal and if its pinging off several towers at once it might be possible for them to triangulate your position a little more accurately this way, but still not nearly as accurately as GPS.

        As for listening in, I know that the way our system was set up back in 2005 this would have been a virtual impossibility. And only someone like the NSA might have been able to find a way to get around this. But they may very well have a system set up in Thailand today so that with certain special SIM cards being used they can listen in. I’m really not up on that stuff these days though.

        By the way, Should anyone decide that they now want to run out and buy a phone that was made before GPS requirements just to avoid GPS tracking, bear in mind that 95% of these being sold online (at least the A1200s), both new and used, are cheap Chinese knock-offs. I suppose this is no big deal though as long as you are not paying the high price of an authentic unit. I actually have 3 authentic units myself so if one breaks in Thailand I’m still good to go.

        I think most people are much more worried about not having the very latest phone to show off than they are about being tracked by the government however.
        Reply

    • Bryan says

      I blogged about this same topic a few weeks ago here and outlined a few ways corrupt police could use this... https://thaiprepaidcard.com/sim-tracking-pokemon-go/

      I know first hand of a guy trying to sell an iPad online, and the buyer was a shakedown cop. Imagine corrupt cops with access to this. Knowing when tourists are out of their bungalow or hotel room. Or staying past closing time in bars. Or showing which of you visit Nana or Cowboy - and then which hotel you end up at. Or coming to fine you the minute you overstay.

      Thai government has every right to do it, but processes in place just make it a scary prospect and hopefully there are repercussions to their bottom line for doing this.

      As for @TheThailandLife's questions. Can it work today? Likely not well - but I don't think that's the right question - cause it will and can work given enough time. The better question is are people willing to accept it today? Cause if they accept it now, any kind of government tracking will be ok later when it does work as expected.
      Reply

  4. Bryan says

    The NBTC seems to be enacting many privacy encroaching plans for both Thai's and foreigners. The Prompt Pay system seems to be a way for the government to track bank accounts and finances.

    This tracking SIM is of course useless for tracking criminals, but I suspect you're right that the US is encouraging any possible tracking and will have access any of this technology.

    As the AIS employee selling private data case shows, this will be abused by high bidders for access to this information. The more groups that get your information, the more chances for your private data to be exposed.
    Reply

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