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Navigating Thailand’s AI Law: Development at a Crossroads

เขมภัทร ทฤษฎิคุณ

First Published in Tech for Good Institute (techforgoodinstitute.org) on March 19, 2025.

The rapid development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become a focal point for governments globally, including Thailand. However, a key challenge for Thailand lies in maximising the benefits of AI, particularly in developing a skilled AI workforce and fostering the adoption of AI among SMEs and startups across various industries.

Thailand’s Ambiguous AI Policy

Thailand has historically exhibited ambiguity in its approach to AI governance, mirroring broader trends in its digital policy landscape. However, the European Union (EU)’s proactive stance on AI regulation has significantly influenced Thailand’s policy direction, leading to the incorporation of similar principles into national AI policies.

In April 2022, the Thai government introduced a draft Royal Decree on the Operation of AI-Based Service Businesses, known as the Regulated AI Law. This legislation aimed to establish regulatory measures for AI-driven businesses to enhance credibility while mitigating public risks. High-risk AI applications—such as those used in critical infrastructure and facial recognition surveillance—would require mandatory registration with the government and compliance with legally defined safety standards, including risk management measures to assess human impact. The law also classified some AI applications as prohibited technologies and outlined penalties for non-compliance.

However, in July 2022, the Thai Cabinet approved the National AI Action Plan (2022–2030), signaling a shift in regulatory direction. Recognising AI’s crucial role in advancing Thailand’s data-driven economy, the plan introduced a structured approach to AI development, with five strategic priorities:

  1. Reforming laws and regulations to ensure responsible AI usage while preventing misuse.
  2. Strengthening AI infrastructure to support long-term technological growth.
  3. Enhancing workforce skills and competencies to meet industry demands.
  4. Promoting AI adoption in key sectors such as healthcare, energy, education, and tourism, with the goal of reducing reliance on foreign technology.
  5. Fostering public-private collaboration through AI Sandboxes and data-sharing frameworks to enhance industrial competitiveness.

To support these objectives, Thailand began drafting the Act on the Promotion and Support of Artificial Intelligence Innovation (or the Supported AI Law). This legislation aims to create an enabling ecosystem by reducing regulatory barriers and fostering public-private partnerships in AI research and application. It proposes the establishment of an AI Innovation Promotion Committee, responsible for setting policies, defining standards, and supporting AI entrepreneurs through registration, advisory services, and AI Sandbox programs that facilitate safe AI experimentation and development. Additionally, the law promotes data-sharing mechanisms between the government and private sector under principles of security and fairness.

From a regulatory perspective, the draft law mandates AI transparency, bias prevention, and user safety while setting contractual standards to clarify AI service provider liabilities. It also introduces an AI Compensation Fund to cover damages in cases where no accountable entity can be identified and implements data confidentiality measures for AI providers submitting information to government agencies.

Unlike the EU’s stricter AI regulations, Thailand’s approach under the Supported AI Law reflects a more balanced model that encourages AI innovation while maintaining fundamental safeguards against potential risks. This dual focus ensures that Thailand remains competitive in AI development without compromising essential regulatory protections.

The Crossroads of Thailand’s AI Law in Policy Development

Thailand recognises the need for AI-specific laws to help meet its development goals. However, there’s a key question about which direction the country should take: should it focus more on regulation or innovation?

So far, the Thai government hasn’t made a final decision. However, in a 2022 meeting, officials from the National AI Committee passed a resolution stating that the country should focus on encouraging AI innovation and creating a clear AI ecosystem, while ensuring regulations are flexible and don’t hold back progress. This suggests Thailand is leaning toward the Supported AI Law, which focuses on promoting AI rather than imposing strict rules.

The Thai government is introducing two draft laws: the Regulated AI Law, which proposes stricter regulatory controls, and the Supported AI Law, which prioritises facilitating AI innovation. This distinction presents a crucial policy choice for Thailand.

This leaves a challenge: strict regulations could limit innovation and make it harder for local businesses to compete, while other countries may advance AI more quickly by not prioritising ethics and transparency. The most critical issue is the clarity of Thailand’s AI policy direction and how the country envisions its AI development model. In the author’s view, Thailand must carefully consider which development approach best suits its context. The Thai government needs to find a balance between encouraging innovation and ensuring AI is used responsibly.

The main issue is whether Thailand should follow the EU’s strict AI regulations, focusing on ethics, transparency, and preventing bias. While these are important, a very strict framework might hurt local AI development and make Thailand rely more on foreign AI technologies that meet stringent compliance requirements. This could lead to fewer opportunities for local businesses to innovate. This challenge is becoming increasingly evident as digital regulations continue to expand and overlap, raising concerns about their long-term impact on AI innovation within the country.

Another option is a more promotion-driven approach, particularly through voluntary governance mechanisms such as AI Sandboxes, where businesses can experiment with AI under flexible rules, while still following existing laws on data privacy and other areas. Such regulatory sandboxes could prevent overly strict regulations from stifling innovation. However, this strategy also presents challenges. Thailand must ensure that its regulatory framework evolves in parallel with emerging AI risks. Key concerns include maintaining transparency, preventing bias, and safeguarding personal data privacy from unauthorised collection and misuse. A balanced regulatory approach is essential to foster innovation while mitigating potential risks associated with AI deployment.

The Future of AI Law Development in Thailand

Thailand’s AI policy is currently at a crossroads, trying to balance strict regulation with a more flexible, innovation-driven approach. If Thailand aligns with the EU’s AI Act, it would focus on key principles such as transparency, preventing bias, and ethical AI development. However, overly strict rules could stifle local innovation and make Thailand more dependent on foreign AI technologies. On the other hand, a model focused on innovation, such as using AI Sandboxes and sector-specific rules, could encourage growth and adapt to new risks. But, even with this, safeguards are necessary to ensure transparency, accountability, and data privacy. Ultimately, Thailand must strike a balance between AI governance and technological advancement to build a sustainable and competitive AI ecosystem.

Thailand’s AI development stands at a pivotal moment. Following the AI Action Summit, the debate on AI’s future direction has become a critical issue—not just for global AI leaders but for Thailand as well. Our choices go beyond industrial growth; they must align with strategic market entry and the geopolitical forces shaping the global AI landscape.

Ultimately, Thailand may need a third approach — a legal framework that balances innovation promotion with government oversight. This model would allow AI innovation to thrive while ensuring responsible governance, possibly guided by ethical AI development principles. While these principles wouldn’t have the same legal power as formal laws, they could help shape best practices. At the same time, the law could limit high-risk AI applications that could harm human safety and life, while offering guidelines for handling such risks and addressing sector-specific issues.

This approach could serve as a viable alternative for Thailand, ensuring a well-structured AI ecosystem that fosters technological advancement while maintaining accountability and transparency in monitoring AI’s societal impact. However, this issue requires further review and deliberation to refine Thailand’s AI governance strategy.

Fixing fiscal laws to have fair elections

เขมภัทร ทฤษฎิคุณ

First Published in Bangkok Post on Wednesday, May 10, 2023

As election campaigns are heating up, political parties are fiercely competing to win votes by offering generous cash handouts, raising concerns about their impacts on the country’s fiscal discipline for the incoming administration.

It is a legitimate concern. Yet the focus on the post-election financial burden should not overshadow the outgoing administration’s last-minute budget spending for political gains, which also endangers fiscal discipline.

The 2018 State Fiscal and Financial Act mandates that the government exercise strict fiscal restraint and forbids it from pursuing political popularity at the expense of the nation’s long-term interests. This law also establishes fiscal rules and regulations on how the government must manage state income and expenditures while imposing a limit on the accumulation of public debt.

Yet, legal loopholes can be exploited during an election period. In order to advance their political agendas, departing administrations may decide to forego transparency by going on a spending binge right before leaving office, which is a  flagrant breach of fiscal responsibility.

Such spending for political gains includes the government’s approval towards the end of its rule to increase the salaries of certain groups of officials to win their support at the polls.

Just one week before the Parliament was dissolved on March 20, the cabinet approved raising the annual salaries of 5,300 subdistrict administrative organizations, or Or Bor Tor, across the nation to 13,744.69 million baht. This represents an increase of 44.66% or 4,252 million baht over the previous salary base.

The very same day, the cabinet approved the salary increase of sub-district heads or kamnan from 10,000 to 12,000 baht, the village heads from 8,000 to 10,000 baht, and sub-district health officials from 6,000 to 7,000 baht.

A week earlier, the cabinet had approved monthly financial support for village health volunteers across the country from 1,000 to 2,000 baht. Notably, their pay was increased by the previous administration from 600 to 1,000 baht, also just before the election.

In addition to salary increases for the groups of officials who could act as voting bases, another strategy is to approve projects to garner public support through quasi-fiscal channels.

This is accomplished through the cabinet’s approval for state loans from the government’s specialised financial institutions like the Government Savings Banks or the Bank for Agricultural and Agricultural Cooperatives (BAAC). According to the loan agreements, these banks will finance specific government initiatives, and the succeeding administration will repay the loans from the national coffer.

A recent example is the Prayut administration’s approval of the One Million Cows Project, which is being managed by the National Village and Urban Community Fund Office through loans from the Bank for Agricultural and Agricultural Cooperatives. Under this four-year project, the village fund office will lend money to farming families so they can each purchase two cows, and the following administration will repay the bank for the loans.

The outgoing government may have the best of intentions, but these policies are tied to future national budget spending. The government must, therefore, uphold fiscal responsibility and transparency by outlining the expenditure in detail and indicating how it will affect the budget of the administration that comes after. In addition, using the budget in this manner may create political popularity that surpasses the opponent, which should not come from using the state budget.

Despite the law on fiscal discipline, it does not cover how the government uses national budgets when elections are imminent. The election law and regulations also contain no restrictions on the use of the national budget to sway elections.

To close these legal loopholes, a system of oversight for the final budgetary expenditures of the departing government must be added to the current law on fiscal discipline.  This system is also crucial to ensure a fair election and prevent the government from abusing its authority against the opposition and smaller political parties.

Such a budgetary oversight system to guarantee fiscal discipline and fair elections is not uncommon in other countries.

For example, in Australia, the Charter of Budget Honesty Law mandates that the government publish an economic and financial report within 10 days of the election’s date being set.

The government has a responsibility to inform the populace of the economic and financial situation before an election.  The report includes the amount of public debt, long-term fiscal liabilities, and budgetary spending.  The report’s objective is to provide information to assist voters in their voting decisions.

Meanwhile, in Brazil, raising the pay of public employees during one’s final year in office or the parliament is regarded as a fiscal crime. 

Thailand should consider Australia’s model. The economic and financial report on the country’s situation is important for the government’s transparency and credibility. Public access to information also strengthens the democratic process. 

The Brazil model, however, is complicated legally and difficult to find solid proof, which ultimately renders the legal efforts futile.

At present, Thailand does not have a strong and independent state agency to monitor the repercussions of the government’s fiscal policies like the Congressional Budget Office in the United States. Given the widespread criticism of the so-called “independent” constitutional organizations at the moment, however, it is not a smart idea to create yet another independent state organisation to carry out this oversight function.

Instead, a viable alternative is to support civil society and academia to monitor and evaluate government spending. However, to effectively close the legal loopholes in the fiscal discipline law, an elected government should set up a legislative budget office once it assumes office.

Otherwise, any administration will be able to continue using taxpayer money improperly by going on last-minute spending sprees to sway voters’ ballot decisions. 

Fiscal discipline is not the only issue at hand. A free and fair election is crucial to democracy. To safeguard the country’s fiscal integrity and democratic values, this political abuse of the national coffer must end.

Personal Data at Risk in Govt Hands

เขมภัทร ทฤษฎิคุณ

First Published in Bangkok Post on Wednesday, August 31, 2022

Only one month after enforcing the law to protect the Thai people’s personal data security and privacy, the government had a change of heart.

Instead of imposing the PDPA law on all organisations that handle data, the government has helped some government agencies to bypass the Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA) in the name of “national security” and “public service”. As a result, government, national security agencies, the courts, public attorneys, police and tax authorities will be permitted to collect, access, and transfer our data with impunity.

In addition, the government can access citizens’ personal data to fulfil those obligations.

A scary scenario indeed.

The Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA) took effect on June 1 this year after a two-year delay. The long-overdue law sets rules and standards for the private and public sectors to follow on collecting and using personal data to protect privacy and security.

While the business community is busy setting up new security mechanisms to comply with the PDPA’s complex rules and avoid legal punishment, the government has hatched a plan to bypass the PDPA altogether.

On July 5, 2022, the cabinet approved the draft of the royal decree by the Ministry of Digital Economy and Society to exempt government agencies from the PDPA law if the data is to be used for public service, national security protection or the inspection of crimes such as narcotics offences, human trafficking and money laundering.

Following cabinet approval, the royal decree can bypass parliament as an urgent piece of law. The legislation will be effective after it is signed by His Majesty the King.

This royal decree will affect citizens’ rights and freedoms for many reasons.

Firstly, the areas of exemption are too broad. Under the drafted royal decree, the PDPA’s stipulations on data protection rights, petition procedures, financial compensation and the punishment for violators will not apply to those state authorities which are exempted by the royal decree.

In short, the officials will freely enjoy legal immunity from prosecution under data protection laws.

Secondly, the exemptions granted to protect “national security” and allow operations of “public service” are too wide-ranging and unclear. This ambiguity allows officials to interpret “national security” and “public service” as they see fit, making it easy for them to abuse power. Allowing all levels of the judiciary — from police and attorneys to the courts — and tax collectors to freely access and transfer the citizens’ personal data creates similar worries.

Public concern over data safety is valid when trust is already so low and power abuse is so widespread.

The public sector has repeatedly failed to protect the personal data of those it should be serving. Government agencies experienced at least five data breaches last year alone. The hacked data involved users’ health records and other sensitive information.

Apart from data breaches from external violators, the government also faces allegations of breaching public privacy and freedom by using spyware to track and record activists’ and journalists’ mobile phone use. Only governments can buy this spyware to hack people’s cell phones.

The government’s alleged violations have raised questions about state responsibility and accountability. Exempting the state from the PDPA further intensifies public concern about abuse of power and political persecution. It also perpetuates a culture of impunity, which aggravates state violence against the citizens.

The exemption may also affect the economy. The PDPA is an important part of a host of digital economic laws to set standards and regulations on the cross-border transfer of personal data, which is essential for digital economic transactions.

Public trust in a secure cross-border transfer of personal data is crucial for the growth of the digital economy. As a result, most international trade agreements, such as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership or Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, require members to honour personal data protection. Even China, an economic powerhouse, agreed to pass the law on personal data protection last year.

The core principle of data protection and privacy in international trade is that the data senders’ and receivers’ countries must share similar data protection standards. To safeguard citizens’ rights and freedoms, the General Data Protection Regulation of the European Union, the gold standard on data protection and privacy, prohibits intervention by the government or security agencies.

The government’s attempt to free itself from the PDPA’s legal obligations violates EU standards on data protection. It will backfire economically.

Data transfer to Thailand will become problematic from failure to meet international standards. The local businesses will be hit hard. The private sector will therefore miss the opportunities to grow in the era of the digital economy.

The government must realise the risks of allowing officials to tamper with people’s privacy and threaten people’s safety. The economic loss will be huge. So will the impact on the citizens’ rights and freedoms.

This royal decree effort violates citizens’ rights enshrined in the constitution. It protects the officialdom, not the people. It perpetuates state oppression and a culture of impunity. It risks seeing Thailand slide into becoming a pariah state. It must be stopped before it is too late.