Published on November 18, 2005

The electronic-document law and the electronic-transaction law are likely to become a single law, in order to reduce the complexity of the legislation when it comes to practical application.

Saowanee Suwannacheep, senior adviser for the Bank of Thailand, said that the government is trying to combine and restructure laws which are now duplicated.

It set up a restructure sub-committee to reduce the complexity of the law. To support the government policy, the two sub-committees related to electronic law will submit their ideas to the Electronic Transaction Committee by the end of this month.

The electronic-document law covers electronic documents, trust and confidence, infrastructure and information security, digital security, and electronic-document management.

Saowanee said that the National Electronics and Computer Technology Centre (Nectec) is in the process of studying a draft of the electronic-document law.

It is expected that once the law is implemented, it will be possible for government agencies and the private sector to switch to a paperless system.

The electronic-document law will allow the government, the private sector, and individuals to use digital data as legal evidence, reducing the need for paper.

The new law will also allow old documents to be duplicated digitally, to be used, for example, in the examination of witnesses in legal disputes.

Meanwhile, the Electronic Transaction Law relates to the acceptance of all electronic transactions done through computer networks as legal evidence.

The electronic-payment committee will propose the first electronic-payment draft to the electronic transaction committee before the electronic-transaction committee sends it for Cabinet approval by the end of this year.

She added that the electronic-payment draft would be related to electronic money and will be the subject of a public hearing this month. The committee expects that the electronic payment law will be provided to the public next year.

“The electronic-money law will facilitate financial transfers between businesses so that they will be able to easily transfer money for their transactions,” said Saowanee.

jirapan@nationgroup.com

Jirapan Boonnoon

The Nation

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