It was just a matter of time, because this was the only solution available to them.Mr. Pootrakool, Secretary-General at the office of the Prime Minister, said on Wednesday last week that foreigners can use the upcoming app for all immigration reporting.
If they take the right approach (can you hear me snoring), they will, or already have, hire outside software consultants to make this thing work as intended. Just adding an App to handle immigration reporting to their existing operating systems sounds simple, but there will definitely be major operating systems upgrades needed as well. Considering the volume of traffic (data input) this App would be supporting, and the internal tasks of reviewing and filing these data, the training (immigration operations) alone would typically require 12 months for this size of a project. Having said that, if they release this new App for public use in a few weeks, or even months, we shouldn't expect it to function as required.
I'm not one for spending too much time dwelling in the past, BUT, if they would have upgraded the Immigration Operating Systems and had the required Apps installed 10 years ago, they would know how many expats actually reside in Thailand, and be able to track overstayers effectively. They certainly dug a deep the hole for themselves, and created enormous amounts of chaos and confusion for the expat community in the process. Hopefully they'll get it right this time.
If they always do what they always did - they'll always get what they always got.