The Ministry of Digital Economy and Society revealed that advance registrations for the TH-AI Pass project surged to 1.1 million rights in just 2 days, denying allegations of hiring IOs to counter criticism of the project.
On 21 Aug 2026 GMT+7, Mr. Patchara Anantasillp, Secretary-General of the Ministry of Digital Economy and Society (DES), together with Mr. Wetang Pongsap, Secretary of the National Digital Economy and Society Commission (NDESC), held a press conference on the progress of the TH-AI Pass advance registration. They reported that in just 2 days, 1,116,154 rights had been registered, meeting the target and attracting strong interest from various sectors.
Mr. Patchara explained that the contract revision causing delays involved changing the payment system to Pay per Active User, meaning users receive 100 points to unlock premium AI model functions over 3 months. The government will only pay for users who actively use the service. If a right holder does not use it within 10 days, their right will be transferred to someone on the waiting list to optimize budget efficiency.
Regarding concerns about personal data, Mr. Patchara affirmed that DES is fully responsible for ensuring the highest data security standards in the country. The Terms of Reference (TOR) require contractors to use AI companies that do not export question sets or data for overseas AI training. After the project ends, all question-answer sets will be developed further for Thai AI. Mr. Wetang added that personal data will be stored domestically; only prompts are sent for AI processing as usual.
Addressing rumors of hiring IOs to counter project-related controversies, the DES Secretary-General firmly denied that any government agency could hire IOs. He humorously added that he does not know or see why they would hire IOs since they already face heavy IO attacks. The ministry is ready to submit documents and provide explanations to the parliamentary committee based on facts. The phase two project will be considered only after evaluating the first phase’s results clearly.