The Electronic Transactions Development Agency (ETDA), the Ministry of Digital for Economy and Society (DES) and the Thai Industrial Standards Institute (TISI) recently held a signing ceremony wherein they signed a memorandum of cooperation (MoC) on ‘Promotion services and implementation of digital government’.
It was noted that over the past several ETDA has overseen various e-commerce and digital initiatives and projects. As is expected this means the agency has had to deal with many cyber threats and holes in the infrastructure. This has made the agency’s varirous teams vigilant.
In order to fix and mitigate the effects of cyber-attacks and threat, the part step is to develop a strong cyber architecture. For this, the ETDA has created the ThaiCERT which works to monitor and solves cyber threats in real-time.
After this, the ETDA came forward to promote e-commerce, including strengthening SMEs in entrepreneurs and communities, with Go Online.
Today, Thai people use the internet a lot. More than 10 hours per day, resulting in Thailand’s e-commerce sector to grow by more than 10% per year, with a total value of over THB3.1 trillion. According to a survey conducted by ETDA, online shopping is one of the top five activities.
This rise is the use of e-commerce platforms has resulted in a rise in cyber-threats and attacks on consumers who have now become concerned about cheating and theft.
Thus, the 1212OCC Online Complaint Center was set up to provide a dependable place for people who have problems with online trading to voice their concerns.
Over the past year, there have been approximately 40,000 cases of complaints. In the past, the centre focused on solving ourselves. However, now the centre has enlisted the aid of law enforcement which they have found to be extremely effective.
This collaboration between ETDA and TISI is based on guidelines – the Comprehensive ASEAN Online E-Commerce Agreement on Online Consumer Protection. These guidelines provide useful information regarding how to watch out and publicize substandard industrial products that are bought and sold online.
In addition, it provides information on how to develop rigorous and comprehensive consumer protection protocols. This includes supporting the development of the issuance of important books by the Thai Industrial Standards Institute in electronic format as well as collaborating with various agencies, companies and institutions on academic, organizational development and digital standardization.
It was noted that the ETDA’s expertise on cybersecurity and trade renders the challenge of making products sold online safe and reliable a little easier. This is, therefore, the starting point of cooperation between ETDA and TISI.
The two parties aim to develop and set the standards for inspection and product quality certification. Moreover, it will promote and develop standards to create fairness in trading.
The two parties have joined hands to monitor non-standard products through Consumer Protection Development licenses made by TISI (which are available in electronic form).
This partnership has been recognised as another important step in raising the standards of Thai online trading to ensure greater efficiency and to protect Thai online-shoppers from predatory traders and sub-standard products and services.