The government will require banks and mobile phone network operators to take more responsibility for preventing online scams.
Deputy Minister Prasert Jantararuangtong said on Thursday that an executive decree will be announced in the Royal Gazette, requiring banks and mobile phone network operators to take more care when it comes to helping prevent their customers from losing money to online scammers.
"After the New Year, we expect to see, for instance, mobile phone messages suspected to contain clickbait to be promptly removed by the mobile phone network operators, or else they will be held responsible if such a message leads to a loss of money to scammers," Mr Prasert said.
This kind of legal mechanism, he said, has been used in other countries such as Singapore, where the government can freeze a bank account where necessary.
Mr Prasert said the government also expects the decree to help speed up tracking and freezing money which a victim loses in an online scam and returning it to promptly the victim.
With this legal mechanism, the process should take no longer than six months, an improvement from the current one or two years, said Mr Prasert, who is also the digital economy and society minister.
News of the decree follows a vow made by former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra to help wipe out online scamming gangs operating in neighbouring countries.
He was speaking while helping a Pheu Thai Party candidate canvassing for votes in a local election in Chiang Mai on Tuesday.
Thaksin hinted at the election campaign event that he had information that a major call centre gang was operating from the 25th floor of a building in Cambodia's Poipet.
He also claimed to have told the Myanmar and Cambodian governments to do more with the online scam problem, which affects many people in Thailand.
And if these countries aren't capable of stamping out those gangs operating on their land, he would volunteer to bring forces from Thailand to deal with the gangs for them, he said without going into detail.
Prime Minster Paetongtarn Shinawatra on Thursday stressed to the Royal Thai Police (RTP) the importance of keeping the public informed about its launch of an online platform designed to help counter online scams.
The PM was paying a visit to the RTP's headquarters, where she was briefed on the police's "Cyber Check" online platform.
It is equipped with technology that allows users to check with the police first whether a telephone number used by someone to call them or a bank account they are asked to transfer money to is on a police black list.