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Biometrics Quickly Uncovering Thai Immigration Fraud

Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing biometrics again. 

Now we have discussed this in prior videos as Thailand has been rolling out biometric readers of things like fingerprints, retinal scans, facial recognition in their attempts to go ahead and beef up Immigration Security. 

In a recent article from the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, titled: Facial Recognition Leads to Fake Passport Arrest. Quoting directly, "A foreigner carrying a fake Malaysian passport was arrested with $500,000 at Suvarnabhumi Airport on Friday morning in the first passport fraud arrest based on a biometric facial-recognition. The device found his face did not match what was in the passport chip,” that is the RFID chip, there is actually a chip embedded in most passports now that allow for biometric readings and biometric information to be kept in the chip, “said Police Colonel Roengron Rimphadee, Deputy Commander of the Immigration Bureau's Division 2." Quoting further, "Police Colonel Roengron said the man insisted he was the same person shown in the passport but his passport was found to be fake.  Records show the man had entered the country via Thai-Malaysian checkpoints on several occasions using this passport."  

So clearly the biometric systems that are being rolled are effective. I think it is safe to presume moving forward that those who are looking to defraud the Immigration system, it is probably not a good idea to try and do that in Thailand anymore. Biometrics, as far as I know, can't really be faked and as a result you are not really going to be able to pull these sort of passport forgery type of shenanigans that were able to be pulled in the past. This is especially the case, in my opinion, at the various Immigration checkpoints at the various airports within Thailand. 

That being said, I suspect that sometime in the relatively near future we will see many biometrics being rolled out at various land borders and sea Immigration checkpoints. When exactly that will happen remains to be seen but I don't think it is illogical to presume that we will see them along land borders perhaps sometime in the relatively near future.