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of Internet Dialogue on Law Reform (iLaw), which monitors freedom of expression.The experts mostly disagreed with the policy. Mr Prasong thinks the single gateway would undermine the government’s plan to develop a digital economy. If implemented, the country would lose its opportunity to become a digital hub for online trade in the Mekong region.“Being a digital economy is about having more internet penetration that can invite global IT firms like Google and Facebook to conduct business here,” he said. “It needs larger band- width and that means the need to build more submarine cables.”A digital economy requires expansion of gateways while a single gateway would centralize the internet connection to a single point. The government would need to cut off the private gateways that it licensed to telecom companies. There is concernabout possible data interception and online communication control, and violation of privacy and human rights. In terms of business, the service might be unreliable and suffer from bottlenecks, as there would only be a single state service provider. Investors fear unfair competition and uncompetitive prices for internet service. Online business and banking service providers would worry about the safety of sensitive trade data.One of many questions is the practicality of a single gateway. Even in countries like China, there are two backup gateways in case the major gateway server in Beijing crashes from information overload or cyber attack. Laos, which has already liberalised the telecom industry to foreign companies, also tried for several years to create a single gateway. The Vientiane government could not achieve this as private telecommunica- tion companies refused to comply.Thus the real question is why the Thai government needs this policy. According to the justification, the government needs to improve cyber security to deal with foreign hackers using Thailand as a base for launching cyber attacks. The government also reasons that the policy would be an effective way of cost-sharing for gateway infrastructure. The authorities also contend that a single gateway would help control access to inappro- priate content and enable monitoring of information.For activists like Mr Yingcheep, the government is creating a tool to monitor political content and gather online evidence especially for content related to lese majeste cases.“In reality, if the government wants to block a website, they have the legal power to do so, but they need to go through many legal procedures that take time,” he said.The single gateway would lead to12 Elite+