Ministry eyes more iris scanners to beat deadline

Ministry eyes more iris scanners to beat deadline

The Labour Ministry and the government committee set up to direct migrant worker nationality verification will discuss a proposal on Friday to bring in more iris scanners to speed up the process as the deadline draws near.

There are more than 60,000 migrant workers yet to undergo a required iris scan as part of the nationality verification process of all migrant workers that needs to be completed by Mar 31, Labour Minister Pol Gen Adul Sangsingkeo said yesterday.

Most -- about 50,000 -- still waiting to have their eyes scanned live in Samut Sakhon where there were two iris scanners before 10 more were brought in from provinces scanning was completed, Department of Employment director, Anurak Tossarat, said.

One machine is capable of scanning 500 people, at most, per day. Since Samut Sakhon now has 12 scanners, the province should be able to process about 6,000 workers each day, labour permanent secretary, Jarin Jakkaphak, said.

That should roughly take 10 working days to finish, he said.

However, Pol Gen Adul has emphasised that the work must be completed on time and ordered the government's electronics office to look into the possibility of bringing in another 10 scanners in case any existing ones suddenly malfunction, said Mr Jarin.

Some 30 iris scanners have been borrowed from the Marine Department since last October for the nationality verification of about 200,000 migrant workers, he said.

Only 26 are still functioning, he said.

On Monday, Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha became angry when informed by Mr Anurak during a iris scan demonstration that nationality verification was progressing slowly because there were not enough scanners.

Gen Prayut smashed his palm down on a desk and said: "Why didn't you buy more? This [task] should have been completed long ago."

The premier also hinted he would not postpone again the deadline for implementing a new law on migrant labour management that sparked controversy over its stiff penalties.

It prompted Gen Prayut to exercise his special powers under Section 44 of the constitution to suspend the law until registration of migrant workers was complete.

"If the process [of getting all migrant workers registered] by the end of June is not complete, there won't be another postponement. Those unregistered migrant workers will be arrested," said Gen Prayut.

Migrant labour management law enforcement was suspended until July 1.

On Jan 16, Mr Anurak said after a cabinet meeting that the deadline for compiling information required for the registration of migrant workers was March 31 and that the national verification process for all migrant workers will be completed by June 30.

About 2 million migrant workers are in Thailand, about 1.1 million have undergone national verification, the rest have not, he said.

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