The Right to Privacy in Thailand: Privacy International Submission to Human Rights Committee to monitoring news deemed critical of the royal family. An earlier Senate report confirmed 60-70 officers from Royal Thai Army alone participated in the Army’s “Information Warfare” and “Information Operations” to read online content and respond if content potentially falling under the crime of lèse majesté is found.11 After the death of the Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej on 13 October 2016, social media surveillance has reportedly considerably stepped up.12 The Thai government’s replies to the list of issues confirms this where it states that “at present, there has been an increasing number of defamation incidents conducted in cyber space or social media, resulting in a rise in cases filed against the accused by referring to Section 14 of Computer Crime Act in connection with Sections 326 and 328 of the Criminal Code (on offence of defamation).”13 Apart from the police and the military, the Thai government relies largely on Thai citizens to monitor and report on political dissent. Active encouragement includes providing financial rewards for sharing of personal information, including pictures, of those displaying opposition to the government,14 to reactivating the cyber scout programme, encouraging students to monitor the internet and denounce anything illegal according to Thai law.15 Beyond active encouragement, the government can rely on the support of a range of groups of private individuals, including some ultra-royalist groups, whose activities result in the invasion of individuals’ privacy in the quest to pursue the crime of lèse-majesté”. Thai authorities use the information revealed to support the prosecution of individuals exposed by such groups.16 Unlike most websites, social media services are spaces that require the user to create an account and log in to access the full range of social media services, for example, sharing articles or exchanging messages with other users. Each social media service is governed by terms of use set out by the private companies that provides the service as to what can and cannot be accessed when you are logged in or not logged in. Any attempt by law enforcement agencies or security services to covertly add the targeted user as a validated contact, e.g. to use fake profiles, to 11 12 13 14 15 16 Subcommittee for the Study of Online Social Media and Threats to National Security, Report on the Study of Online Social Media and Threats to National Security, Senate Committee on Armed Forces, 2012, http://www. senate.go.th/w3c/senate/pictures/comm/66/file_1353298809.pdf Prachatai, Thailand’s witch-hunting culture explained by sociologist, 26 October 2016, http://prachatai.org/ english/node/6672?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+pra Replies of Thailand to the list of issues, UN doc. CCPR/C/THA/Q/2/Add.1, paragraph 107. Saiyasombut, S., Thailand’s junta offers $15 reward for info on dissidents, Asian Correspondent, 24 June 2014. Available at: http://asiancorrespondent.com/124071/thailands-junta-offers-15-reward-for-info-ondissidents/ See Privacy International, Friends, Followers, Police Officers, and Enemies: Social Surveillance in Thailand, September 2016, https://www.privacyinternational.org/node/935 For example the Social Sanction (SS) group became well-known with the arrest of Norawase Yotpiyasathien, a business administration student from Kasetsart University, for his blog posts deemed to contain content insulting the royal family. He was, at 23 years old, the youngest person arrested for lèse-majesté, which caused concern among students. The SS exposed Norawase and published his name, photos, personal address and phone numbers online. When he was arrested the SS wrote “another one is down.” Norawase was arrested before the military coup, a time when lèse-majesté sentences were significantly more lenient and he was therefore released on bail after a few days of arrests. More information on this and other cases are contained in Privacy International, Friends, Followers, Police Officers, and Enemies: Social Surveillance in Thailand, September 2016, https://www.privacyinternational.org/node/935 4