Transcript of the above video:

As we have discussed in many other videos, there has been this talk about creating this Electronic Travel Authorization, similar to the Electronic System for Travel Authorization or ESTA that the United States has. Thailand seems to at least on some level be mimicking this in creating their ETA, their Electronic Travel Authorization.

Now we don't know exactly what this thing is going to look like. They talked about bringing it in this year, then they talked about bringing it in the first quarter of 2025. It's my understanding it has currently been postponed because due to the volume of people coming in, it's just not really feasible to roll this thing out. My personal opinion is I hope it never rolls out. I don't really see the point of it especially in light of the fact that Thai Embassies and Consulates have now said, 'hey we're going entirely over to E-Visas, Okay, why do we need the ETA then? Why create another digital bureaucracy hurdle for people to overcome in order to be tourists into Thailand? Meanwhile, as discussed in other videos, Thai Immigration here internally is supposedly creating this Thailand Immigration system, TIS, which is going to be its own digital thing. How that thing interacts with ETA, how that interacts with the E-Visas remains to be seen, but it doesn't look great. 

As I've discussed in other videos, any digitization of bureaucracy tends to make it worse, it doesn't tend to make it better. I'm sorry, that's just been my observation of 17 plus years practicing primarily US Immigration Law but seeing the system over here in Thailand as well and just other systems around the world. Anytime they digitize this stuff, it isn't good. As we discussed in another video made contemporaneously with this one, they're talking about some new ID System that they are going to roll out with biometrics and things, which is going to be this online “digital” ID if you will for Thais, it's called ThaiID. As I discuss in that video, it's like we already have Thai IDs, why do we need this digital version of that? Again, it makes not a lot of logical sense unless you start looking at it and saying well bureaucracy tends to beget bureaucracy and the same thing happens in cyberspace. 

Long story short and in conclusion - sorry for going off on a bit of a tangent there - long story short, we do not know what the Electronic Travel Authorization is going to look like; we don't even exactly know when it's going to be rolled out. It could be rolled out right at the beginning of the year. Thai Immigration tends to do big things at the year end points or at the New Year point. That being said, it remains to be seen, and we will certainly keep you updated on this channel as the situation evolves.