Thailand 4.0? Police armed with ID card readers
Police stations nationwide will be equipped with identification card readers to interface with an online police database to assist in the capture of fugitives, police said on Thursday.
Deputy police commissioner Pol General Winai Thongsong said the Royal Thai Police would soon equip police stations with ID card readers linking to the Police Darta Centre (PDC).
Winai said the card readers would take seven seconds to tell whether the owner of an ID card was wanted on an arrest warrant.
Winai said the PDC system had already enabled police to arrest up to 36,000 suspects wanted under arrest warrants in the first 10 days since the system went online.
He added that the PDC was an addition to the Command and Control Operation Centre (CCOC), which was set up in 2014. The CCOC had recorded more 800,000 arrest warrants that were still outstanding since 2002, he said.
He said the CCOC had helped police arrest just 7,000 suspects since it was set up in 2014, a paltry result that had prompted the introduction of the PDC mobile app this year.
Winai added that the app had already proved successful and the ID card readers would enhance its functionality.
An “unofficial investigators club” had also contributed additional information to the PDC, he said.