Legal Limitations relating to the Application of Thai Computer–related Crime Act of B.E. 2560 to the case of “Phishing”

Abstract

Phishing” is one of the important cybercrimes in digital age. This article focused on the legal aspect of controlling and criminalizing of “Phishing” in the context of the Computer related Crime Act B.E. 2550 as amended in B.E. 2560. Although “phishing” was stipulated in the draft Bill as a reason of government for amending section 14 (1) in B.E.2560, the author argued that this law could partially cover the practice of “Phishing” due to the fact that main elements of section 14 (1) demonstrate several limitations. The element of “input false of distort data”, for example, limits the application of this section to the practice of representing false pretense to human or deceiving person. Hence, it could hardly apply to “phishing” that aims at deceiving system or manipulating the automatic computation of computer system. By conducting a comparative analysis of section 14 (1) to cybercrime convention of Europe, certain EU member’s laws and phishing laws of the U.S., the author proposes the amendment of section 14 (1) in order to comprehensively regulate the practice of “Phishing”.