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Comment by patchtopic | Hacker News Reader

There are lots of laws in Thailand that are sporadically, selectively, unevenly or not at all enforced.

The TM30 foreign resident laws in Thailand were put on the books in 1979 but they only decided to start enforcing them (albeit extremely inconsistently) in the last few months.

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Mobile data plans are cheap enough and good enough that most people, even travellers use them now. Enforcing this law could simply get free anonymous wifi turned off so all traffic goes over the mobile networks.

My experience is that SIM card providers (at airports) will take a scan of your passport before giving you a SIM card, so they are probably already in compliance.

They have to I believe by law - foreign tourists (not sure about non-tourists my sim is older than the law) also get different sims apparently. I’ll see if I can find a link about it.

Edit: found it. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/10/thai-regulator...

Edit: to clarify I don’t think the two are linked specifically - most services/purchases like this in Thailand require some form of Government ID. For locals that’s usually an ID card, some places will accept my Thai drivers licence others want passport.

My wife was asked to submit a TM30 when I first dealt with the local immigration office here in town... 6 years ago? L

I’m not saying it’s always been enforced but it’s not “the last few months”.

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