Single base of foreign tourists in Thailand

By the end of the summer of 2018 in Thailand will be formed a single base of all foreigners visiting this country. The main purpose of this base is strict control over the observance of immigration laws, the prevention of the activities of international criminal groups in the Kingdom of Thailand, the detection of fraud and the traffic in narcotic substances. Therefore, responsible departments are the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Thailand and the Immigration Bureau of the country. In addition to creating a common electronic database of foreigners, checkpoints will be upgraded at airports and at land border crossings in Thailand.

In particular, instead of the immigration form No. 6, which has been used for many years, electronic data of passport of foreigners and biometric data will be used. To do this, all checkpoints will be equipped with new passport scanners and fingerprint scanners. This will allow in live mode bring in a common database of all foreigners at the time of their arrival in the country and monitor the implementation of immigration legislation (term stay in the country, the visa, etc.). The Thai authorities understand that control only at the borders does not allow to fully control the presence of foreigners in the country. For example, there are data that at the beginning of 2018 there are approximately 8,000 foreigners illegally in the country and their identification among law-abiding tourists is a difficult matter.

Therefore, on the initiative of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, a new procedure for informing about the accommodation of foreigners in hotels, guest houses, apartments, etc. will operate. Owners (or employees) of these establishments will be required to store and transfer data about customers to the nearest immigration office or police station. Later these data will be entered in the common base of foreigners in the country. Thus, the relevant authorities will be able to quickly find individuals who have violated migration laws and do not want to leave Thailand after the visa or stamp has expired for a temporary stay in the country. Surely, the new rules will not be able to find all the violators of the country’s migration legislation without exception, however, the new order will obviously complicate the lives of the latter – it will significantly reduce the number of safe places and ultimately lead to deportation and large fines for overstay in Thailand.

It is to be hoped that such total control over foreigners will really allow to make rest in Thailand even safer and will not lead to negative consequences. Also, it remains unclear how the new legislation will be respected by the owners of houses and apartments in Thai resorts, where we can rent accommodation through a popular service with bonuses AirBNB or other similar services.