The Department of Disease Control (DDC) plans to impose compulsory measures for all inbound arrivals, including notifying personal information and contact information such as mobile phone numbers and email addresses as part of steps to control the Covid-19 outbreak.

The measure will commence on Thursday and all personal information for inbound tourists will be kept in the system for 14 days after their arrival.

The information can be provided through immigration form TM8 or an application developed by the National Science and Technology Development Agency that can be downloaded from Thursday.

Foreign tourists can continue using their mobile SIM card for phone packages with roaming service, or buy a new SIM card at 49 baht with unlimited internet.

The latest move came yesterday after an urgent meeting at the office of the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) that included the NBTC secretary-general, the digital economy and society (DES) minister and representatives from the Immigration Police and the DDC.

DES Minister Buddhipongse Punnakanta said the government will ask for cooperation from all inbound tourists to provide personal data and contact details on immigration forms or via the downloaded application.

Immigration officers will check the completeness of the personal data provided on the forms or the app before allowing travellers to pass the immigration counter.

"Please do not call this a tracking system because the state will track them only when critical situations arise, when they need to be monitored to handle the outbreak," said Mr Buddhipongse.

He said daily inbound arrivals average 70,000, comprising 20,000 Thais and 50,000 foreigners.

The gathered data can be analysed and used for zoning.

It can be used to alert the DDC when quarantined people are not in their places or informed addresses, sending warnings to other people who might stay nearby.

The next step is to send SMS alerts to the phones of those who stay near risky individuals, he said.

Warnings, for example, can be sent to people travelling by electric train service when risky people enter the system.