Questions/Answers

Fishery industry in Thailand mainly relies on labor; however, the number of Thai fishery workers were scarce due to hard-working conditions and a risk of natural disasters. Therefore, foreign workers were an option to substitute the gap. Human Rights Watch (HRW) found problematic issues on fishery workers, especially migrant workers., for example, the workers did not receive the copy of employment agreement which led to exploitation and human rights abuses (i.e. underpayment and forced labor). Marine Department (MD) has key responsibilities to monitor and regulate all water transportation, including ports, ships, and seafarers. The department, therefore, addressed the problem and developed t the system called “Single Window 4 Fishing Fleet” (SW4FF) with the following objectives: - To regulate Thai fishing vessels to legally obtain approval on sending worker onboard by recording on the working onboard workers in the database and verifying the identity of the working onboard workers via facial identification feature. - To facilitate entrepreneurs on the application process for worker’s permission to legally work onboard in fishing vessels. - To develop the database to interlink with related authorities (i.e. Department of Provincial Administration, Department of Fisheries, Department of Labour Protection and Welfare, and Department of Employment) as a single system so that the related authorities can effecientlly use the database to regulate the working onboard labor.

This initiative aligns with Category 4: Promoting digital transformation in public sector institutions by utilizing the digital technology, SW4FF, to regulate and monitor workers on fishing vessels. The system was developed to substitute the previous paper records. and devised under the cooperation of several agencies which allowed data access and connectivity among related authorities. Additionally, the “Face Recognition System” was installed to verify the identity of the working onboard workers.

MD can effectively regulate, control, and monitor the workers in fishing vessels as stated in the SGD No. 16: Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels which promote peace and justice strong institutions. - Effective examination on fishery labor decreases illegal labour practice since every worker is required to verify themselves before they work on fishing vessels. Once all fishery labor is registered in the system, they, they will have rights and legal protection with regards to the work type and welfare. - With the SW4FF, the fishery business and the business with the similar contexts will be accepted internationally, resulting in more and continual employment in fishery sector

-Economical aspect: Thai Food Processors’ Association projected an increase in the export value of Thai seafood by 12,000-15,000 million THB. -Social aspect: the increase of the export value would keep employment in Thai food processor sector and other sectors which prevents labour relocation and family separation.It also help decrease crime rate on the other hand. -Environmental aspect, the system supports sustainable fishery development with aquatic animal preservation regulations, which prevent destructive fishing practices. The system controls the signing-on and signing-off fishing vessel, fishing tools, and fishing area.As stated above, it is recommended that governmental administration must maintain and continually develop the system.

Thailand has approximate coastline length of 2,815 kilometer with 735 fishing ports. The control of fishery labor is under many administration agencies. The previous administrative procedures were based on paper-based documents. Therefore, entrepreneurs were required to bring their workers to apply for the permission at the administration office, which is inconvenient These factors hindered the administration capability to control and monitor on all workers and caused the workers to be exploited. The system can resolve the above problems as follows: - Government officers can work at any place with Wi-Fi connection to access the fishery worker database. Related administration agenicie can thoroughly monitor all fishery labor and ensure that they receive all legal rights. - The system was designed for entrepreneurs’ convenience to apply for fishery labor permission via internet and pay service fee with the available platform. The convenience shall promote and stimulate the fishery labor to register into the system. - The system has facial database of fishery labor with correct identification which prevents subrogation. All fishery labor, therefore, shall be 100% legally protected.

This system has no gender restriction. Only registered labor can work on fishing vessel. Therefore, regardless of gender, anyone with legally-specified qualifications shall be permitted to work on fishing vessels.

- Shipowners can process their paperless transactions and payment electronically with the database connected among 4 government administration agencies. The system also minimizes shipowners’ travel expenses and time. They can access to governmental information and services to verify the information with one Digital ID. - Fishery labor is completely under governmental protection. As shipowners are required to report the working shifts of the labor procedures via the SW4FF system which was designed under the policy of “the person who signs-in, must be the same person who signs-off”, it prevents the excessive working hours of the labor , forced labor, physical abuses while working onboard at sea, as stated in the respective laws. Moreover, when maritime accident occurs, the system can provide information to search and rescue the workers, as well as notify the news to the input address in the system database. - Officers can work more effectively with Face Recognition System. The system reduced the failure of labor inspection. The data mergence between the 4 fishery administration agencies can prevent counterfeit documents and decrease document inspection period from 1-2 hours to 10-15 minutes.

- In 2015, MD legally enforced fishing vessels of 30 gross tonnage or more, with 1 certificate per 1 vessel, which a shipowner must apply for the permission 285certificate before prior to fishery. . - In 2016, the SW4FF was initially developed. MD invited related administration offices to participate and share their beneficial requirements on the system usage. - In 2017, the developed SW4FFwas launched. It was used between various administration offices; for example, fishery entrepreneurs, Department of Fisheries, Department of Labor Protection and Welfare, Department of Employment, and Royal Thai Navy up to the present. MD ordered its 22 seashore branches to fully apply the electronic system to issue the permit certification for fishing vessels. - In 2019, the second phase of the SW4FF development enhanced its capability to verify the labor and control on the fishery labor transfer (signing on and signing off workers) tosolve the problems which entrepreneurs suggested about the cost of switching of sick workers in the vessel with the healthy ones on land. The system will be able to provide the services for fishing vessels at sea and control all signing procedures during the operations on the fishing vessels. The database in the system will be used to inspect the fishing vessels in the sea more accurately in a random basis.

-Upon the transition of application method from paper-based to electronic-based,there was resistance from incorporative shipowners.Therefore,MD issued the Marine Department Annoucement about the permission to work on fishing vessels vessels via electronic means and cancel paper form. -Communication problems between officers and shipowners occurred at the beginning as the shipowner didn't wholly understand SW4FF.MD increased communication channels and solved the initial problems through social network communication by creating a chat group consisting of all shipowners together with MD officers,system developers,leader of fishery group.The communication allowing shipowners to correctly and legally operate their fishing vessels.

1.The initiative integrates pieces of information from each departments into a single system which allows public to access and use electronically as a practical single window. 2.Verification of personal identity via Facial Recognition system is designed to replace previous verification procedure via human eyes which visually compared a person to the submitted photo.SW4FF firstly introduced the use of biometric technology.The facial structures of all fishery labour are kept into the government database.

- Preventive measures against human trafficking as a form of fishing labor and illegal fishing: MD intensively organizes with several operations, such as fishing vessel registration, working attendance control, and Seaman Book issuance. Moreover, the Department developed a work permit for fishery labor on fishing vessels under Section 285, to inspect fishery labor by using the facial scan system on smartphones.

- None

The SW4FF system is an electronic system which supports the operation of fishery labour working on fishing vessels. It is a reliable database management which becomes one of the key reasons that the European Union (EU) considered to lift the Yellow Card for Thailand in the early 2019. As the system promotes the supervision and control of fishery labor effectively, MD was granted with the Outstanding Award from the State Excellence Awards Government Service on data integration category for outstanding service from the Office of the Public Sector Development Commission (OPDC). The MD recognizes the system potential; therefore, it is stipulated that the form of control on workers in fishing vessels will be used with other types of vessels, such as cargo vessels, passenger boats in the country by 2020. Moreover, the system will extend additional links to other administrations such as Immigration Bureau, Customs Department, and Department of Consular Affairs to improve the supervision of seafarers in various types of ships more efficiently.

The Command Center for Combating Illegal Fishing (CCCIF) provided the budget of 14,207,200 THB to develop the system. The budget was allocated to the following: - 9,154,400 THB for human resources management and experts to develop the SW4FF system. - 4,772,000 THB for software and hardware expenditure. This portion of the budget is used to purchase additional software programs, such as Face Scan SDK, tablets with Wi-Fi installment to access the system. - 280,800 THB for technical training on system usage. This portion of the budget is used to arrange training for officials, entrepreneur, and related administration agencies.

-This system is important for both economy and society. As discussed in Section 3.B,it is necessary to continuously develop and implement this system. -Thailand has a policy to push the government administration forward to be the digital government.To clarify the policy, the Digital Government Development Guidelines have been announced in the Royal Decree on Principles and Methods of Good Government Administration in 2019.So every department regularly receives the financial support to manage within the departments. -SW4FF will facilitate all relevant parties such as government regulators and entrepreneurs who have to proceed legally.Therefore,the system development received good responses and supports from all parties.

Yes

MD conducted self-assessment by implementing the system to supervise and control workers in fishing vessels under the following assessment methods: - Data accuracy: a success in linking data from relevant administration agencies - Data security: a success in determining the authority of all officers. - The number of fishing vessels registered in the system and the number of issued licenses: a success in identifying the permit/disallow status of each registered ship. - The number of working labor in fishing vessels: all fishery workers are registered in the system.

- Percentage of labor working on fishing vessels who were registered in the system. - The number of fishing vessels which were registered in the system. -The success level of linking data from the relevant departments. All 3 indicators were evaluated from the inspection of relevant administration officials. It was evident that the fishery vessels that are currently being registered cannot be found in the system. All fishermen working on every fishing boat must also be registered in the system. The inspection can be carried out through the system with the accurate and up-to-date supporting data.

The system has been used since January 2017. As the system is efficient and able to facilitates several operations for both government officials and fishing boat entrepreneurs, including workers on fishing vessel, 100% fishing vessels and fishery workers were completely registered into the system. The fact that all fishing vessels and fishery labor have information in the system makes the related government authorities effectively control fishery entrepreneurs and fishery labor to have legal rights and perform their duties as specified in the laws. As a result, the fishing boat entrepreneurs still maintain labor to operate while fishery labor can work without any exploitation. This is one of the factors which drives Thailand's ranking in the Human Trafficking Report from tier 2 watch list in 2017 to tier 2 in 2018 – 2019. More importantly, the EU also considered to remove the yellow flag for Thailand in early 2019. The MD, who has been developing the system in order to supervise and control fishing boat entrepreneurs and fishery labour so that these people can harmoniously live with dignity and equality.

Modern system development via database linking within MD and between related administration agencies, as (Web Service)has has the following details: - Department of Fisheries uses the information from work permits on fishing vessels by linking with the Fishing Info system to consider allowing fishing boats to enter and leave the port in accordance with the department’s regulations. - Department of Provincial Administration uses the civil registration data to confirm the accuracy of personal identification via connection with the department’s Link Gate center system. - Department of Employment verifies the Work Permit data of the foreign workers on the fishing boat. - Department of Labor Protection and Welfare uses the employment contract information and the employee registration to determine the accuracy of employment conditions and to prove that wage payment is in accordance with the employment agreement, including the rights that onboard workers shall receive under the employment agreement. - The Royal Thai Navy uses the offline data to verify the fishing vessels at sea in a random basis.

Design: MD in the collaboration with Department of Fisheries, Department of Labor Protection and Welfare, Department of Employment, The Royal Thai Navy, Fisheries Association of Thailand, and other fishery associations designed and proposed ideas to develop the system. The committee was appoint with the objectives to specify client groups and their needs which will be later used to update the system. Procedures: MD organized meetings with relevant administration departments to gather, link, and certify the accurate information. The The Fishing Info, Sign-on/off fishing vessel information, and Linkage Center system were integrated as “Web Service”. Evaluation: The Command Center for Combating Illegal Fishing (CCCIF) organized training for relevant staff from all related administration sections to inspect every Port-in Port-out (PIPO) Control Centers every ship-in-out control center (PIPO) in order to maintain the same operational standard at every center.

The electronic request of work permit on fishing vessels was only applied in Thailand’s territorial waters, but now the system is further developed to cover the areas outside Thai territorial waters as well as expand the type of fishery-supported vessels in the system to control the request to work onboard. Moreover, the system can now operate offline data via OTG Flash Drive – the device for inspection in the areas without internet signals or for inspection by sea surveillance units. The MD will complete the stated modification in 2019.