Facial recognition mandatory for mobile phone usage in southern Thailand

BANGKOK, Oct 15 – Mobile phone users including foreigners travelling to southern Thailand need to submit their photographs for facial recognition or face their mobile phone jammed from November.

The biometric registration for mobile phone users in three southern provinces – Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat as well as four districts in neigbouring Songkhla province will end on Oct 31.

However, the orders from Thailand National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commissions (NBTC) published in the Royal Gazette in April and June this year have caused an uproar as human rights activists see it as a move to violate the rights of the Muslim-majority population in the south.

Fourth Division Military spokesman Col. Pramote Prom-in who defended the move said facial identification is a tool to stop the locals from being made used by members of armed groups.

He said the move would help relevant authorities to identify perpetrators who used mobile phone reception to detonate home-made bombs in southern Thailand.

“We are not violating the people's rights instead we are protecting their rights and lives from being abused by perpetrators. Police investigations found many violent incidents in the south used mobile phone reception to detonate explosive devices.

“There are cases where the perpetrators used the identification card of others to purchase mobile sim card from other regions and countries to detonate explosive devices.

“With the new measure, we hope to trace the perpetrators who use mobile phones to detonate a bomb,” he told Bernama here today.

Citing an example, Pramote said investigation into the bombing at the popular Samila Beach in Songkhla last year which damaged the famous Golden Mermaid Statue and the Cat and Mouse Sculpture showed the perpetrators purchased 20 mobile phone sim cards from Bangkok to stage the violence. As of last week, Pramote said about 50 per cent of the one million mobile phone users in the three provinces and four districts in Songkhla have been registered.

“Everyone will have to register their mobile phone soon as those who failed to do so will have their mobile phone reception cut off,” he said.

When asked whether the registration period will be extended, he said NBTC and the Internal Security Operations Command (ISOC) would consider the matter later.

He added that about 6,000 officers have been appointed to assist locals in the registration. Mobile phone users outside southern Thailand, will have to register at the telecommunication companies prior to their traveling period.

In southern Thailand, bomb explosions and shootings killed about 7,000 people in the armed conflict in four regions in southern Thailand -- Pattani, Narathiwat, Yala and Songkhla -- since it broke out in 2004.

-- BERNAMA