Callers will instead be connected with employees of TOT Plc, which operates the lines.

The move came in response to complaints from parents of about 10 teenage girls who went missing for short periods.

Teenagers have called lines such as "Chat Super Gik" to set up dates. But at least 10 girls did not return home immediately and it was later discovered they had called the chat lines prior to their disappearance.

Representatives from TOT, the Information and Communication Technology Ministry (ICT) and the Mirror Foundation, a non-government group that tries to locate missing persons, met last week to consider solutions to the problems posed by the chat lines.

The foundation had previously urged the National Telecom-munications Commission and the Culture Ministry to regulate the chat lines after numerous girls went missing. Police found they had made lengthy telephone calls to the 1900 chat lines before disappearing.

As a result of the meeting, TOT agreed to start connecting callers to people employed by TOT instead of to anonymous stran-gers.

The assembled representatives failed to come up with a way to check callers' ages. They had hoped to come up with a punishment for people who give false information about their identity.

ICT deputy permanent secretary Maneerat Plipat said he would accept TOT's proposed new format, but was unsure of whether it would be effective.

Pol Lt-Colonel Thammanon Monkong, deputy superintendent of the Centre for Children, Juveniles and Women, said that even though TOT had taken some responsibility for the chat lines, they should still be considered a source of immorality because people would talk about sex.

"We will keep an eye on the operators to make sure they don't break any laws," he said.