The Thai Netizen have made the following remarks on the digital economy bills: - Stop sniffing Stop the “Cyber Security bill” -- In order to promote digital economy, freedom of expression must first be protected. - Recently, there are several proposed bills related to information, and communication technology. The cabinet has approved in principle ten bills in the series. Three more are on the queue to be approved. - We, the signatories, are concerned that these 10+3 bills violate rights and liberty of the people and operators in several ways, monopolize the resources and do not promote the digital economy as claimed. They in fact is “Digital security. We have the following remarks: - These bills in fact are not digital economy, but bills on national security which bestow vast power to the authorities. - These bills, especially the eight bills which were hastily proposed and approved by the cabinet on 6 January 2015. The bills were not on the agenda of the meeting. Some state agencies have never seen the bills before. The bills which will extensively affect people’s life and economy are not adequately deliberated by both the people and state authorities. - There are at least five amendment drafts and brand new bills -- the amendment of Computer Crime Act, Cyber Security, Digital Transaction, Inducement Suppression bills, and the amendment of Criminal Procedure bill) which allow the authorities to search, confiscate, having access and intercept without any check and balance from credible judges and in some cases, they can be conducted without strong evidence. This is the violation of freedom of expression, right to privacy and right to personal information, and will affect the confidence of business operator related to information and communication. - The draft amendment of the National Broadcasting and Telecommunication Technology (NBTC) bill destroys the independence of this regulator and will possibly pave the way for the retrieval of the frequencies radio frequencies to the hands of the government and the military as they were before the enactment of 1997 Constitution. It will destroy the principle that radio frequencies are public resources and will also destroy the mechanism of the free market. The objectives of the fund which now is from the license fee of the radio frequencies will be gravely modified. It is not the fund for research for public good -- promoting consumer protection, social enterprise, professional ethics, accessibility, media literacy of people with physical challenges, elderly and the marginalized -- will be changed into a fund for state authorities and private sectors for loans. - The draft amendment of the NBTC does not tackle the problem on the transparency and accountability. The bill will establish another agency which has rather similar financial and administrative structure - All the bills clearly lack the mechanism to protect rights and liberty of the consumers. Moreover, each committee does not have the quota for representatives on rights as the committee members. The most obvious one is the committee on the protection of personal information under the Protection of Personal Information bill. The three seats for personals on consumers rights were cut and replaced with two seats for representatives on national security. They also share secretary office with the committee on National Cyber Security, whose roles are in conflict. This may lead to conflict of interest and poor check and balance mechanism.
Posted on: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 10:34:43 +0000