Thailand’s Immigration Bureau has faced criticism for failing to collect biometric data from 17 million foreign arrivals last year due to storage capacity issues. The bureau admitted that its biometric system had reached its maximum storage capacity, preventing the collection of advanced biometric data such as facial recognition patterns and fingerprint mapping. This lapse was called the “ultimate failure” by opposition lawmaker Rangsiman Rome, who highlighted the system’s inability to flag blacklisted individuals.
The bureau has been allocated 3 billion baht to develop a new system with unlimited storage capacity, expected to take around 29 months to complete. In the meantime, immigration officers have been manually taking pictures of travellers’ faces and fingerprints, but the lack of biometric data has raised concerns about the effectiveness of the system in countering crime.
Rangsiman pointed out that many immigration officers were unaware of the issue and continued to use the same equipment for biometric registrations. He also linked the system’s shortcomings to the continued operation of transnational criminal groups in Thailand. Despite assurances from the Immigration Bureau that the collected data is still effective in countering crime, Rangsiman remains unconvinced, calling the biometric system “not functional.”
