Govt tracks WiFi for ‘fake news’
Coffee shops told to hand over logs
Digital Economy and Society Minister Buddhipongse Punnakanta has told owners of coffee shops with WiFi to turn over their customers’ browsing histories for the last 90 days.
The minister told reporters yesterday that the search data will be used to track down “fake news” that could cause rifts and disunity in society.
The so-called anti-fake-news centre, formed in August, would use the data to monitor and investigate those who disseminate inappropriate information online in violation of Section 26 of the Computer Crimes Act, he added.
Mr Buddhipongse said owners of coffee shops may not realise that the law dictates they must collect their WiFi log files.
These record either events that occur in an operating system or software, or messages between different users of communication software.
The measure is not meant to track down customers or abuse personal data, he said, but instead to help prevent abuses via internet platforms.
“Some people are likely to access the internet via WiFi in coffee shops to commit offences because they think that no log file is collected,” Mr Buddhipongse said.
In August, the ministry appointed four subcommittees under the antifake-news centre to deal with four topics it says are most frequently abused by the dissemination of fake or fraudulent information.
Those topics are natural disasters, the economy (including finance and capital markets), public health, and state policy and security.
Mr Buddhipongse made the announcement at the Technology Crime Suppression Division (TCSD) during a press conference on the arrest of a 25-year-old man for “inappropriate tweets” under strict cyber laws now administered by his ministry.
Authorities have arrested and charged political activist Kan Pongpraphapan for posting “inappropriate” content online, cyber police at the TCSD said yesterday.
Mr Kan’s lawyer Winyat Chatmontri denied reports that his client had criticised the royal family.
Mr Kan was detained on Monday night at his home in Bangkok’s Phayathai district and questioned over a Facebook post, described by police only as a story about the history of a foreign country.
The suspect was not charged with lese majeste but with violating computer crime laws involving national security, police said. They referred obliquely to the #royalmotorcade hashtag in announcing the arrest.
“The comments Mr Kan posted on Facebook did not mention Thailand’s monarchy nor the #royalmotorcade hashtag at all,” Mr Winyat insisted.
“His post was about the history of Russia, France and Germany. But the charge brought by the digital economy ministry resulted from an interpretation and an effort to link him to the hashtag,” Mr Winyat said, according to Reuters.
Speaking briefly to the media while being transferred at 3am from the TCSD to the police station, Mr Kan said he was determined to fight the “serious charge”.
He was released on bail with a surety of 100,000 baht.
Prior to Mr Kan’s arrest, the Ministry of Digital Economy and Society had alerted the TCSD to his alleged misconduct, said the lawyer, adding that Mr Kan’s Facebook post of only five lines was doctored and then circulated on Twitter, leading to his arrest.
Pol Col Siriwat Dipho, deputy commissioner of the TCSD, said the suspect denied any wrongdoing. If found guilty, Mr Kan faces up to five years in prison and a fine of 100,000 baht, while those who share his Facebook post will face an equal penalty, said Pol Col Siriwat.
Meanwhile, Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwon said yesterday that four to five other people were involved in the alleged violation of the Computer Crime Act that led to Mr Kan’s arrest.
The Digital Economy and Society (DES) Ministry’s demand that all cafes store data passing through their WiFi connections has drawn flak from shop owners, especially small-scale operators, who said the measure would impose a financial burden on them, including server expense.
DES Minister Buddhipongse Punnakanta said yesterday that coffee shops must keep the traffic data, known as a log file, for at least 90 days in line with Section 26 of the Computer Crime Act.
The move is meant to allow authorities to track down those behind illicit acts or remarks on the internet.
A company linked with PTT Plc, which owns Cafe Amazon, expressed worries about the cost of the measure.
“The business must spend more on a software system or technology to serve the government’s policy,” said Pongsak Tantikul, chief executive of PO Oil Co, a franchise trader of oil and gas under PTT. “We don’t know yet how much it will cost us, and the company is concerned about that.”
Small and medium-sized enterprises will be more affected by the policy than large firms, he said.
PO Oil operates eight petrol stations under the PTT brand.
An owner of the Roi 8 Coff coffee shop in Klong Toey district said that in order to comply with the law, a server must be acquired to keep the information.
When asked whether this would be an additional expense, the owner, who gave only his nickname Pong, said “absolutely”.
“If the government wants shops to store the information, they need to have a proxy server to store logs that can help identify who has used WiFi,” said Mr Pong, 41.
A PC that can run as a server could cost 20,000 baht, he said.
To follow through on the regulation, customers may have to fill out their information before logging onto WiFi at the shop. “This would surely burden customers,” Mr Pong said.
Forcing all shops to follow this policy would be difficult, he said: “Small shops would be in trouble.”
Mr Pong suggested the telecom operators step in to provide a solution to the issue.
Paiboon Amonpinyokeat, founder of the P&P law firm and an adviser to the DES Ministry, said coffee shops or internet cafes can just keep records on paper rather than using a server or data storage.
These shops can ask customers to write their names and ID numbers, along with the time and date they used WiFi, he said.
This information, coupled with CCTV footage at shops, can help track people who violate the act, said Mr Paiboon, who participated in the drafting of the Computer Crime Act.
“The intent of the law mandates that only large service operators, such as internet service providers and mobile operators, keep a log file in servers,” he said, adding that the law is not meant to put the burden on SMEs.
Mr Paiboon said that since the law came into force in 2007 and was amended in 2017, not a single case has been enforced under the legislation.
Criminals sometimes use public WiFi to commit offences, he said.
Mr Paiboon said the collection of personal data does not conflict with the Personal Data Protection Act, which is due to be enforced in May next year, one year after it was published in the Royal Gazette.