
Thai Minister Orders Cafes, Restaurants to Collect Customers’ WiFi Data - peterkelly
http://www.khaosodenglish.com/politics/2019/10/08/digital-minister-orders-cafes-restaurants-to-collect-customers-wifi-data/
======
dynjo
This has been the case for 11 years already!?

[https://thaicrisis.wordpress.com/2008/08/13/they-did-it-
law-...](https://thaicrisis.wordpress.com/2008/08/13/they-did-it-law-requires-
companies-to-store-all-internet-traffic-for-90-days)

~~~
patchtopic
There are lots of laws in Thailand that are sporadically, selectively,
unevenly or not at all enforced.

The TM30 foreign resident laws in Thailand were put on the books in 1979 but
they only decided to start enforcing them (albeit extremely inconsistently) in
the last few months.

~~~
dageshi
Mobile data plans are cheap enough and good enough that most people, even
travellers use them now. Enforcing this law could simply get free anonymous
wifi turned off so all traffic goes over the mobile networks.

~~~
Cakez0r
My experience is that SIM card providers (at airports) will take a scan of
your passport before giving you a SIM card, so they are probably already in
compliance.

~~~
stephenr
They have to I believe by law - foreign tourists (not sure about non-tourists
my sim is older than the law) also get different sims apparently. I’ll see if
I can find a link about it.

Edit: found it. [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/10/thai-
regulator...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/10/thai-regulator-
backs-sim-card-plan-to-track-tourists)

Edit: to clarify I don’t think the two are linked specifically - most
services/purchases like this in Thailand require some form of Government ID.
For locals that’s usually an ID card, some places will accept my Thai drivers
licence others want passport.

------
PeterStuer
Given how much confusion reigns e.g. in Europe around data retention for
public wifi, don't be surprised when your local public hotspot or hotel wifi
collects more than it should.

[https://arstechnica.com/information-
technology/2016/08/publi...](https://arstechnica.com/information-
technology/2016/08/public-wi-fi-forget-the-scare-stories-read-this/)

------
taurath
That seems incredibly onerous, or a great way to ensure wifi isn’t offered.

~~~
tecleandor
I've been working there this summer and they're already requesting personal
information and ID when logging in free Wi-Fi spots (although they don't
verify it) . They probably log some other information.

They usually do it through third party providers who manage their wifi spots,
probably in exchange of some ads.

------
Canada
This just isn't going to happen.

------
devoply
VPN problemo solved.

~~~
angry_octet
It's traffic analysis. They know when something 'subversive' gets posted, they
can filter out who was connecting to the site at that time, get a list of
suspects. Obviously 99% of the traffic is coming from mobiles which have great
metadata tagging already, also geolocation. Cafe wifi you can use from across
the road, in a busy place etc, much harder.

~~~
devoply
Mobile use cloudflares 1.1.1.1 with vpn... free

~~~
throwaway32333
Does Warp actually hit the CF Bangkok endpoint when in Thailand? Is local
regulation affecting Warp rollout location wide? This would circumvent the
licensed international gateways as I imagine Cloudflare is backhauling this
traffic to Singapore fine as a CDN edge but as ingest for VPN traffic sounds
risky... Can you check? I bet your hitting the Cloudflare SGP cluster instead
so still leaving Thailand via True/CAT/AIS/TOT/3BBJastel.

