Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing background checks in the context of Thai Visas. I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Bangkok Post, that is bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Elite Card in the hot seat over scandal. This article, the thrust of it goes a different way than what we are talking about here, I am quoting a small excerpt. I urge those who are watching this video go check out that article for yourself. Quoting directly: "During the application process, Thailand Privilege Card (TPC), the operator of Thailand Elite Card, will send personal data of applications to the Immigration Bureau and the Department of Consular Affairs to screen for criminal records."

So yeah, this is something, they are talking about it here in the specific context of Thai Elite Visas but it is worth pointing out that that is not the only Visa that has a criminal background check component to it. As we have discussed in other videos for example the Thai Retirement Visa, specifically the O-A especially, those who get a Thai Retirement Visa issued will oftentimes need to go ahead and deal with getting a criminal background check run and even submitting documentation associated with a criminal background check during the process of adjudication for a Thai Retirement Visa. So again, Thai Immigration has gotten in the past years but more acutely since the rescinding of the Emergency Decree pertaining to COVID-19, it has gone back to the status quo ante and quite honestly, Thai Immigration to my mind has a lot of pent-up resources if you will, they essentially increased the number of Immigration Officers right before we went into the Emergency Decree period which essentially left a lot of personnel I would say with not a lot to do. I think a lot of training got done, this just my speculation and then the Emergency Decree ended and now we are back to status quo ante and we have got a lot of more trained personnel, more personnel generally and enforcement issues are a priority. As I have discussed in many other videos, over my time here in Thailand and that is roughly 15 years, I have watched the attitude, the paradigm if you will associated with Immigration move from very much a notion of administrative functioning to a notion of law enforcement functioning which that is a major change and in many ways this is something that it really kind of is going to impact a broad swath of those who are looking to get Thai Visas and this is just one example of that where you have got heightened scrutiny of Thailand Elite. In the beginning, I remember Thailand Elite Visas didn't need a background check associated with them. That was added later and it's now one of the reasons it can take a little while to process those applications because they have to do kind of a deep dive into somebody's background. 

So interesting here that we are seeing these background checks discussed in association with Thailand Elite Visas but remember other categories, most notably the O-A Retirement Visa, also have a background check component to them as well.