Graduation attended by king raises student data fears

When it was reported that Thailand’s King Maha Vajiralongkorn would hand out graduation certificates to graduating students at Thammasat University on 30-31 October, the strict security screening process and the level of cooperation between university administration and security officers prompted questions on the university’s standards in protecting the rights and data of its students.

Thammasat’s commencement day or graduation ceremony on 30-31 October came under the political spotlight amid a series of nationwide youth-led demonstrations that have continued for months.

The Tha Prachan campus where the ceremony was held was also the same place where student demands for monarchy reform were read out for the first time in August, breaking a longstanding taboo against criticising the monarchy.

King Maha Vajiralongkorn followed in the footsteps of his late father, King Bhumibol Adulyadej, in handing out degree certificates to graduates of some universities including Thammasat. It was not the first time the king had attended the Thammasat graduation ceremony, but this year the security measures were much stricter.

Student-led demonstrations have been ongoing since July, demanding the ousting of the current prime minister, former junta leader Prayuth Chan-ocha, more democracy and changes to the institution of the monarchy.

While Prime Minister Prayuth said that no special order was given, the English-language Bangkok Post newspaper reported strong security measures ahead of the Thammasat commencement. According to its sources, soldiers were bought in from several army units to beef up security.

Local newspaper website Prachachat.net also reported that among security units responsible for security inside and surrounding the campus were the Royal Air Command of the Royal Thai Air Force, which was responsible for the campus’ internal area, and the Royal Thai Navy, which oversaw security in the river area nearby. Different Royal Thai Army units such as the Royal Guard Division were also assigned to handle security inside the Thammasat University auditorium during the ceremony.

Some students boycott the ceremony

Government crackdowns on protest leaders, including two key student activists from the university, had led to a campaign for Thammasat graduates to symbolically express their political stand by not participating in the official ceremony presided over by the king.

A week before, a Facebook post on a page run by ‘Thammasat Graduates of the People’ pointed to concerns expressed by university staff and government officials responsible for ceremony proceedings over possible ‘inappropriate’ incidents on campus.

“Let’s play a game,” the Facebook post said, pointing to “A Big Surprise”. As the post became national news, Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha came out to warn against any attempt to offend the monarch during the upcoming ceremony, saying any incident on campus would be “extremely improper”.

As a result, fewer graduates participated in the official ceremony compared to previous years. A Thammasat document obtained by University World News showed that the total number of graduates of all levels at Thammasat was 9,625, with 7,756 bachelor degree graduates, of whom only 3,280 or 48.52% joined the graduation rehearsal, which was compulsory for those receiving their certificate at the official ceremony, attended by the king.

A 23-year-old political science student who identified herself by her nickname Fah told University World News by phone that she had decided not to join the official ceremony to express a stand against ‘bad politics’ in the country.

“It was difficult to convince my parents at first, but they finally understood. I told my mother we could hang my graduation picture with them in it at home instead of having a boring official picture taken inside the auditorium,” she said.

The “Big Surprise” turned out to be a plan to stage a parallel diploma handover ceremony at the same time as the official ceremony in the auditorium using life-size cardboards of two exiled monarchy critics – including former Thammasat history professor Somsak Jeamteerasakul who fled Thailand after the 2014 coup, after being charged with lèse majesté – to hand over fake certificates.

Some students lined up to take pictures with the cut-outs, but the activity was cut short after university staff took away some activist versions of the degree certificates that students had been intending to hand out, and some other materials.

The main ceremony in the auditorium with both the king and the queen in attendance on both days ended smoothly without interruption.

Uproar over data security

The university had earlier declared that every graduate must go through a two-hour COVID-19 screening process once they arrived at the campus for the commencement. But the intensity of screening invited criticism.

Only two of the three campus gates were open, each with screening tents operated by police. Those seeking entry had to have their national identity documents screened.

Once scanned, the screen displayed the cardholder’s personal information along with different colour bars. A green bar, for example, allowed the cardholder to enter the campus without problems. A red bar meant the cardholder had to go to a nearby tent to be questioned by police. Those with a purple bar reported having their photo taken by the police without any explanation.

Everyone was given a sticker to identify themselves according to their identity document’s colour code while inside the campus, students reported.

According to a report by human rights NGO Internet Law Reform Dialogue on its website, the purple code was used to identify graduates who had refused to join the official ceremony, while red was for those with a record of having participated in political activities.

A website of the Thai Lawyers for Human Rights Center also reported on a Facebook post by a person who came to the campus to congratulate her graduating friends and who wrote that the information that appeared on the screen also revealed her record of treatment for a psychiatric disorder. She was then transferred to another desk for questioning.

“They asked about my condition and years of treatment. The person next to me was asked about the kinds of medicines they took,” she wrote.

She added: “I asked them why they did this, and the answer was because they were afraid that I would not be able to control myself. Finally, they gave me a pink sticker. Normal people were given a yellow sticker. To be honest, I had never felt like I was a strange person before.”

Students and other organisations questioned whether the university had a role in disclosing graduates’ personal information to the authorities who issue national identity cards, with the information stored on a chip in the card.

The Thammasat Graduate Committee issued a statement demanding an explanation from the university and called on the university to disclose who was responsible for collecting the personal information, including photographs. It also wanted information on the university’s policy on data collection, including the length of time it planned to hold the data.

The committee also expressed concerns about the safety and welfare of those whose information had been gathered.

The Thammasat University Student Union also issued a statement, demanding disclosure by the university on who was given the students’ information as well as the types of information given to outside entities.

The union also asked whether the university had known how those entities would make use of students’ personal information, and demanded that the university clarify the details as well as the reason for collecting information on people entering the campus without prior notice. Finally, it asked whether Thammasat University was still on the side of democracy and of its students.

Kasian Tejapira, a Thammasat University political science professor, criticised the security screening process in a Facebook post. The process had shown that Thammasat graduates as a whole were seen as a threat to security.

He also pointed out that the security units and the higher education institution had breached the freedoms and rights to privacy of the university’s graduates and citizens. This did not help to resolve issues concerning the institution of the monarch, political conflicts, the national reconciliation process, or the dignity of Thammasat University, he noted.

So far the Thammasat University administration has not officially clarified the issue.