Mor Chana Covid-19 application to be discontinued

[reader]

NOTE -- This article claims that Thai Pass will be discontinued June 1.

From The Thaiger

Thailand’s once-mandatory Covid-19 tracking application “Mor Chana”, or Doctor Wins, will be discontinued from June 1. Mor Chana was once commonly used to track coronavirus cases and notify people if they had been exposed to Covid-19.

Mor Chana, which was launched on April 29 2020, used GPS and Bluetooth to track the movement of users, who were expected to use the application to scan a barcode to “check in” to venues during the height of the pandemic.

In January 2021, health minister Anutin Charnvirakul said anyone who contracted Covid-19 without having previously downloaded and used the app would be subject to up to two years imprisonment and a fine of up to ฿40,000. The threat was criticised as unfair on people without smartphones.

However, over time, use of the Mor Chana fell out of use and many venues no longer expected attendees to “check in” using the app.

Yesterday, Mor Chana made an announcement via Facebook that the application will be discontinued from June 1. Mor Chana didn’t provide reasoning, but the move is thought to have something to do with Thailand moving towards declaring Covid-19 as an endemic disease. The Thailand Pass is also expected to be discontinued from June 1.

[vinapu]

In Dec I did not upload it , nobody asked, thus never used and left Thailand undisturbed by neither officials nor covid

[Guest]

We were supposed to install it.   

I installed it, but did not grant it permission to use my GPS or anything like that.   I did not operate the app whilst in Thailand.

I note that the Thais were much less likely to sign into places in 2021-22 than a year earlier.    Who would want to be tracked when there was compulsory detention for covid ?