THAILAND’S DATA protection bill, approved by the Cabinet earlier this week, is falling short of the benchmark set by the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) law, especially in terms of protecting Thai citizens’ right to their online data, according to the Thai Netizen Network.

Arthit Suriyawongkul, coordinator of the network, said a major issue is that the proposed national committee on data protection, which will be in charge of protecting the rights of Thai citizens, will not be independent enough since most committee members will be state officials and representatives of private sector bodies.

In addition, this crucial committee is under the Ministry of Digital Economy and Society’s (MDES) jurisdiction, so committee members will not have the autonomy enjoyed by those sitting on the National Human Rights Commission or the previous National Broadcasting and Telecom Commission, he said.

The proposed national committee also has members who are users of the people’s online data, including representatives of the Thai Bankers’ Association and Federation of Thai Industries and the Board of Trade, so there is a potential conflict of interest as far as protecting citizens’ online data is concerned.

The National Committee on Digital Economy and Society, chaired by deputy premier Prajin Juntong, yesterday held a meeting to discuss enforcement of the EU law, which was implemented worldwide yesterday. Dr Pichet Durongkaveroj, the Minister of Digital Economy and Society, said earlier the government is speeding up enactment of the Thai data protection bill to ensure that the country has a legal framework to work with the EU on this matter.

There were also reports that the Cabinet-approved bill may need some changes so that it is up to date when compared with the EU law, especially in terms of punitive measures covering data leaks and breaches.

The EU law’s enforcement also has consequences for Thailand and other countries that deal with EU citizens. In Thailand, tourism and related businesses, financial services, and healthcare are among the sectors required to take steps to comply with the EU law, or they may face punitive measures if there are data leaks and breaches involving EU customers.

According to Arthit of the Thai Netizens’ Network, the government should consider upgrading the composition of the national committee on data protection to ensure that they are better qualified to do their duty to protect the rights of citizens’ online data.

The EU has said that its data protection law, which was enacted in 2016, is designed to allow citizens to take back control of personal information held online. Brussels has insisted that the law will become a global benchmark for the protection of people’s online information, particularly in the wake of the Facebook data harvesting scandal, according to AFP.

AFP also reported that some US news websites were blocked by the EU data law yesterday after the law took effect, with the LA Times, Chicago Tribune, New York Daily News, Baltimore Sun and Orlando Sentinel websites all displaying the same message that they could not be accessed.

“Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in most European countries,” the message read. “We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to the EU market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.”

The blocked websites are all owned by media company Tronc, formerly known as Tribune Publishing. Local US newspapers owned by Lee Enterprises, including the St Louis Post Dispatch and Arizona Daily Sun, were also out of reach.

“We recognise you are attempting to access this website from a country belonging to the European Economic Area, including the EU which enforces the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and therefore cannot grant you access at this time,” its website said.

According to AFP, the EU rules were officially adopted two years ago, with a grace period until now to adapt to them, but some companies have been slow to act, resulting in a last-minute scramble.

Agro-chemical opposition networks, led by BioThai Foundation and Thailand Pesticide Alert Network (Thai-PAN), yesterday called on citizens to mark the upcoming World Environment Day.

The Hazardous Substance Committee approved the continued use of the three chemicals but with stricter regulations and restrictions that they said would ensure safer use of these farm chemicals and limit environmental impacts.

Thai-PAN coordinator Prokchon Usap said the June 5 public gathering will kick off on World Environment Day at 8am in front of Government House. The groups intended to highlight what they see as the “improper” decision to allow the continued imports and use of environmentally harmful chemicals. World Environment Day is an annual international occasion for encouraging awareness and action regarding environmental protection.

Prokchon said the public organisations under the umbrella network would submit a petition to Prime Minister General Prayut Chan-o-cha asking that the committee’s decision be reconsidered and that a ban on the controversial chemicals be implemented.

Groups opposing the farm chemicals note that the decision conflicts with the positions taken by other ministries and experts. The Public Health Ministry and a working group of four ministries had suggested banning the toxic chemicals. The committee’s decision to continue their use also ignored scientific studies that have found adverse impacts to the environment and people’s health from the chemicals, the opponents noted. In a related matter, the National Legislative Assembly (NLA) yesterday approved the first reading of the Hazardous Substance Bill by a landslide vote. The amended law, presented by the Industry Ministry, would improve the regulation of use, movement, and management of hazardous substances to ensure the safety of consumers and the general public.

Deputy Industry Minister Somchai Harnhirun said the bill includes amendments regulating the import, export and transfer of hazardous substances, guidelines for advertising hazardous substances and an amendment to the structure and duties of the Hazardous Substance Committee.

NLA member Admiral Panlop Tamisanon praised the bill, citing its upgraded regulation of hazardous substances, which he said would place new restrictions on paraquat, glyphosate and chlorpyrifos in line with the recent decision by the committee. Panlop also said the new guidelines for advertising hazardous substances would ensure that the general public is properly aware of the dangers and risks of hazardous substances and knows how to use and handle them safely.

While most NLA members approved this bill, Monthian Buntan was one of a minority who expressed concern over the improved regulations. He argued that new measures governing importing of hazardous substances are insufficient to prevent negative impacts on public health or the environment because toxic herbicides like paraquat could still be imported into the country.

Somchai responded that the amendments coming from the Hazardous Substance Committee would result in more effective control and management of hazardous substances.

He also denied charges of illegal association stemming from his role as a co-leader of the now-defunct People’s Democratic Reform Committee (PDRC).

Back in 2014, the PDRC led rallies against the Yingluck Shinawatra-led government. At the height of the rallies, Phra Buddha Isara reportedly mobilised demonstrators to attack two special-branch policemen and snatch their guns. Due to these charges, armed commando police raided Onoi Temple and arrested him on Thursday morning.

Later in the day, he was defrocked and sent to jail because he failed to secure a bail.

People Reform Party leader Paiboon Nititawan, who is a follower of Phra Buddha Isara or Suwit Thongprasert, visited the ex-monk at the Bangkok Remand Prison yesterday. “He’s healthy and fine,” Paiboon said following the visit.

According to him, Suwit has no plan to quickly submit another bail request. “He prefers to wait till police submit the investigation report first,” Paiboon said.

He added that Suwit did not intend to sue police for excessive use of force in the arrest operation.

Some people expressed abhorrence over the police carrying weapons when they raided Phra Buddha Isara’s living quarters inside the temple.

National police Commissioner Pol General Chakthip Chaijinda has said police carried out the operation in line with normal procedures.

“It’s just that people have hardly seen the arrests of monks,” he said.

Phra Buddha Isara was the not only monk arrested on Thursday. Almost simultaneously, police also raided three Bangkok temples and arrested five senior monks.

All the arrested were denied bail and defrocked.

Corrections Department’s director-general Pol Colonel Naras Savestanan said Suwit and the five other ex-monks were kept in separate cells. “We allow them to wear white robes until they are able to adjust,” Naras said.

Inmate uniforms are brown in colour but Naras said those spending a long time in monkhood might feel uncomfortable if they were not even allowed to wear white.

The distraught mother collected her daughter’s body from the Institute of Forensic Medicine yesterday.

The 45-year-old mother, whose name is being withheld to protect the victim’s identity, spoke to officials from the Social Development and Human Security Ministry who visited her at home in Muang Khon Kaen on Thursday to see if the family qualified for any aid.

The mother said her daughter had found a job via a Facebook user going by the name of Daranibong Nurainee, who promised she would get a waitress job in South Korea paying Bt70,000 monthly and offered to pay all her travel expenses for her.

Despite relatives warning against taking up the offer as it could be a criminal’s trick, her daughter insisted on going in the hope of helping to pay for repairs for the family’s home and to support the family, said the mother.

She boarded the plane on April 26 and ended up on an island in Malaysia, where she was told she would work as a waitress at a Thai restaurant. She later contacted her mother to tell her that she no longer served food and had been forced into prostituting herself.

The girl was held against her will and refused food unless she complied. She told her mother she had even been forced to drink water from the toilet to survive. Moreover, she told her family they would have to repay the agent who brought her to Malaysia to obtain her freedom.

Relatives then contacted the Facebook crime news community “E-jan”, which led to a raid on May 10 by Malaysian police to rescue her daughter and two other Thai victims. The daughter sent a Facebook message to a relative that she had been taken to an emergency home and should soon be back in Khon Kaen.

Last Friday, the mother was shocked to hear about her daughter’s suicide and said she thought she might be the victim of foul play.

Khon Kaen governor Somsak Jangtrakul said the Department of Consular Affairs had said the woman’s suicide was related to stress after learning she would be detained for another three months for an investigation.

He urged people wishing to work aboard to contact only legally-registered job agencies or the Department of Employment, in order to avoid becoming a victim of criminals.

Phra Phromsitti is among the high-ranking monks wanted for alleged embezzlement of state funds meant for Buddhist monasteries.

While police successfully arrested five senior monks in Bangkok on Thursday, Phra Phromsitti and Samphanthawongsaram Temple’s assistant abbot Phra Phrommedhi managed to elude the police.

“Some parts of the recordings are deleted,” Crime Suppression Division (CSD) commander Pol Maj-General Maitree Chimcherd said in response to reports that a black vehicle seemed to have been waiting for the abbot of Sa Ket Temple before he disappeared. “We will dig deeper.”

More than Bt132 million in Phra Phromsitti’s bank accounts have been frozen.

National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) secretary-general Warawit Sukboon, meanwhile, said the graft-fighting body would hold a meeting on the case against the senior monks next week.

Three of the senior monks sat on the country’s highest body for monastic affairs, the Sangha Supreme Council (SSC), until Thursday. The SSC fired them over the scandal following unprecedented police raid of three large temples in the capital on Thursday morning.

The operation nabbed SSC member and Sam Phraya Temple abbot Phra Phromdilok (Euan Hasadhammo). Later in the day, he was defrocked and sent to jail over embezzlement-related charges in line with those against the four other arrested monks.

The five former monks, who have all denied any wrongdoing, are now being detained at the Bangkok Remand Prison.

Officials there said the ex-monks had difficulty sleeping on their first night in jail.

Deputy Prime Minister Wissanu Krea-ngam said the former monks could fight their case in court.

However, he said, the scandal might have already shaken the Sangha circles and affected the feelings of some Buddhists. Th deputy prime minister believed the scandal called for the stricter screening of who could enter the SSC.

He said the police operation was an effort to remove problems that have plagued Buddhism.

“Authorities need to take action to make the religion purer,” he said.

An informed source said the government had given tacit approval for police to take drastic actions against the senior monks implicated in the temple-fund scandal, as it had a policy to clean up the Sangha circles.

It is an open secret that high-ranking monks have wielded huge influence and abbots of some big temples have huge assets under their care.

The Sa Ket Temple, widely known as the Golden Mount Temple, reportedly has more than Bt1 billion in assets. “Given that Phra Phromsitthi has faced an arrest warrant and gone on the run, preparations are being made for the appointment of an acting abbot,” the source said.

By monastic rules, abbots have the mandate to name the layman manager for their temples, too. There is no limit on the manager’s tenure.

The source said the latest crackdown on alleged temple corruption hit hard at the group of monks who had climbed monastic ranks under the protection of Somdet Phra Buddhacarya (Kiaw Upaseno), a former abbot of Sa Ket Temple who passed away in 2013.

Somdet Phra Buddhacarya used to chair the committee that had carried out work on behalf of the country’s Supreme Patriarch.

Sa Ket Temple’s three assistant abbots Phra Srikunaporn (Boonthavee Khamma), Phra Khru Siriviharnkarn (Somjit Jansri), and Phra Wijitdhammaporn (Terd Yanawachiro) were also arrested and defrocked on Thursday.

The special week coincides with Vesak Day, or Visakha Bucha Day, commemorating the birth, enlightenment and death of the Buddha. This year it falls on May 29.

To mark Visakha Bucha, HM King Maha Vajiralongkorn assigned Privy Councillor General Surayud Chulanont to represent him in making merit in dedication to HM the late King Bhumibol Adulyadej and HM Queen Sirikit. The merit-making ceremony took place at the Royal Plaza.

Taiwan Crime Investigation Bureau commissioner Tsai Tsan-Po, together with Tourist Police Bureau deputy chief Pol Maj-General Surachate Hakparn, on Friday announced the arrest of nine male suspects and one female suspect along with the seizure of 1.7 million Taiwanese dollars, 14 cell phones, 10 ATM cards, seven notebooks with contact details of network members, and two computers.

Surachate said the bust stemmed from the Royal Thai Police’s call-centre scam suppression operation centre’s probe into the case, in which more than 10 civil servant retirees in Bangkok were duped into wiring a combined nearly Bt1 million to the gang, which then withdrew the cash in Taiwan.

This led Thai police to contact Taiwanese peers for help, and the Taiwanese spent three months technologically tracing the gang. The resulting was the arrest of 10 key suspects in the telecom fraud gang, along with 11 others who were hired to make cash withdrawal at ATMs, Surachate said.

Among the 10 key suspects arrested were nine males: Woo Wenfeng, Huang Jui Foo, Lin Ying Cheng, Pai Hsuan, Liu Zhang Chen, Chen Jihaa, Su Ech, Luan Chun and Chen Weng. So Rin was the sole arrested female.

Thai police also submitted to the Taiwan police the names of 29 Taiwanese suspects who were wanted in Thailand for separate telecom fraud cases, Surachate said, adding that Taiwan police are now hunting down those on the list.

As for the 18 Thais who were arrested during an October 2017 telecommunication fraud raid in central Taiwan for preying on people in Thailand, the Taiwanese CIB said they would be sent back to Thailand after their prosecution in Taiwan is completed.