Thailand failed to collect biometric data from 17 million arrivals due to ‘limited’ storage

Thailand’s Immigration Bureau has come under fire for allowing about 17 million foreign arrivals to enter last year without storing their biometric details due to a capacity issue – a lapse an opposition lawmaker called the “ultimate failure” of the organisation.

The bureau told a parliamentary committee on border affairs last week that its biometrics system had insufficient storage capabilities and therefore failed to collect information on foreign arrivals, local media reported.

Immigration officers had been manually taking pictures of travellers’ faces and fingerprints, but with no biometric data, the system was unable to flag blacklisted individuals, Bureau Data Division Commander Neti Khanboon told the panel.

Unlike basic photos and fingerprints, biometric data include advanced features such as facial recognition patterns and fingerprint mapping, which enable automated identity verification and cross-checking against watch lists.

Neti said the bureau had been allocated 3 billion baht (US$88.8 million) to develop a new system with unlimited storage capacity, but it would take around 29 months to complete.

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Why are Chinese tourists wary of going to Thailand and has it become a dangerous place to travel?

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The current system’s storage had maxed out at 50 million people, although Neti noted the bureau had also set aside 500 million baht to buy new licences for further data entries.