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Article Excerpt
Abstract. The concept of privacy as a basic human right which has to be protected by law is a recently adopted concept in Thailand, as the protection of human rights was only legally recognized by the National Human Rights Act in 1999. Moreover, along with other drafted legislation on computer crime, the law on privacy protection has not yet been enacted. The political reform and the influences of globalization have speeded up the process of westernization of the urban, educated middle-class professionals. However, the strength of traditional Thai culture means that a mass awareness of the concept of privacy rights remains scarce. This paper explicates the Thai cultural perspective on privacy and discusses the influence of Buddhism on privacy rights, including the impacts of globalization and the influence of Western values on the country's political and legal developments. The paper also discusses the legal provisions regarding privacy protection, and the debates on the smart ID cards policy and SIM cards registration for national security.
Key words: Buddhism, data protection, human rights, privacy protection, privacy rights, smart ID cards, Thai culture
Introduction
The concepts of liberal Western values dramatically entered into Thai consciousness and culture as a result of the 1932 coup with the abolition of absolute monarchy and the introduction of a parliamentary system under a Constitution based on liberty, equality and freedom. However, the democratic development was short-lived and Thailand went through a series of coups and military regimes. After the Cold War, the influences of economic expansion, globalization and subsequent political struggles have changed Thailand into a country with a modern, industrialized and cosmopolitan outlook. But the traditional Thai values and culture are not conducive to the assimilation of the concepts of human rights, privacy rights and protection, as Thai culture is based on collectivism and non-confrontation. For the new generations, changes are taking place in the new cultural space. By observing various web-board discussions, the issue of privacy protection is fast becoming one of the hot topics among the educated, urban middle-class and Internet surfers or netizens, especially regarding the issues of 'smart' ID cards (that would contain personal and medical information) and the enforced registration of prepaid SIM cards for mobile phones. The first part of this paper discusses the Thai conception of privacy and the influences of Buddhism on privacy rights and the background to the development of privacy legislation. The second part discusses the legal provision on privacy rights and the debates on the smart ID cards project and the control of SIM cards for national security.
Thai perspectives on 'privacy'
Most writers on the concept of Thai privacy agree that the western concept of 'privacy' is not applicable to Thai social reality. But this may be changing in the age of the Internet, insofar as culture is forever dynamic and as some argue, a desire for privacy is a panhuman trait. (1) According to Thais, the first connotation of privacy is negative in the sense that the loss of privacy would bring shame, disrespect or loss of face in public. The word 'private' was assimilated into Thai culture around the reign of King Rama V (1868-1910) as the Thai word 'pri-vade' (modified from 'private') was used for 'shud-pri-vade' which means casual clothes vis-a-vis military uniforms; 'shud-pri-vade' are clothes people would wear at home, which could range from pyjamas, dressing gowns or old tatty clothes to informal attire. Normally, these clothes would be quite casual or 'unrespectable' so that one would be embarrassed if caught wearing them at formal occasions or in public. During the period of Kings Rama IV and V (1851-1868), Western military uniforms, costumes and royal regalia were much admired and assimilated into Thai culture. So, this meaning corresponds to the concept of 'privacy' in Thai language of 'being private' or 'living privately' (khwam pen yu suan tua).
It is important to further notice that this conception of privacy is basically collectivistic--not, as Westerners tend to assume, individual. That is, as Ramasoota makes clear, 'being private' in traditional Thailand applies primarily to the shared family space in which family members undertake a wide range of activities--including rituals, cooking and eating, and sleeping--as demarcated from the world outside: "It is the kind of privacy that is shared by intimate members of the same household. By this token, individualistic privacy is said to have no place in traditional Thai culture." (2)
Niels Mudler likewise points out that privacy and individualism are Western concepts that are not applicable to Thai society, for Thai life is played out in public. (3) However, a person's private affairs should be kept private which implies that a Thai has both a right and obligation in the sense that he has to hide his own psychological problems within the bounds of expected behavior; this includes the right to expect other people to respect his private affairs which would cause him to lose face if made public.
The second meaning of 'privacy' in Thai culture connotes the right to be left alone or non-interference which can be equated to 'private affairs' or 'my private affairs' or 'my business' ('rueng-suan-tua' or 'rueng-suan-tua-khong-chan' or 'tu-ra-khong-chan'). Personal or private businesses or affairs should not be interfered with in Thai culture, e.g., quarrels within the family, the punishment of a child by his parents, and so forth. This notion is the legacy of the feudal heritage of Thai society where the master or lord of the household owned and commanded the lives and destinies of all his subordinates under his autocratic rule.
The lack of a Thai word for 'privacy' reflects the traditional Thai village life and the heritage of the feudalistic values in Thai history. The traditional Thai village house consists of a large room which is used as kitchen, living room, dining room and bedroom. This one-room house is where all members of the immediate extended family share their social lives. For this lifestyle to be kept in order and harmony, necessary cultural values and norms had been established, evolved and shared among people for generations. According to Holmes and Tangtongtavy, the two cornerstones of Thai culture are conflict avoidance and the hierarchical society. (4) In order to create strong relationships and to maintain them, conflict avoidance or non-confrontation is diligently observed, because the result of a confrontation can be disastrous as it results in 'losing-face' ('siar-na') by either side of the conflict. 'Face' represents one's social and professional position, reputation and self image, so that a loss of face...
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