Year

2004

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Department

School of Information Technology and Computer Science - Faculty of Informatics

Abstract

One of the most important aspects of decision and policy making is the timely access to accurately and relevant information. At present the situation in some developing countries is that communication and exchange of information between the government agencies are still paper-based. It can often take weeks or months for one government agency to obtain the records it requires from another agency. The lack of communication between these agencies often results in duplication of efforts and inefficiencies. This lack of communication also means that agencies often produce more of the irrelevant albeit sophisticated information (such as the Statistics Division) than the essential information that is critical and actually needed by other agency for decision making. (World Bank report, 1998) In order to bring people into information society, to have access to information, it is crucial to have appropriate technology and applications that compatible with both old and new technologies—given that majority can not afford to keep up with new technologies being introduced everyday--as well as quality programming in indigenous languages, To create an information society in developing countries, we must first have knowledge of their past, understand their present. Only then participating in their future can be more probable and possible (Matsepe-Casaburri 1996) The overall aim of this study is to add value to the process of information sharing among the government departments in Thailand. It does this by analyzing the opportunity to integrate existing technology with the data available in existing databases and make it more valuable for future use. A case study of the Department of Local Administration, under the Ministry of Interior, and the Royal Thai Police Department is used to develop an understanding of how the utilization of data to a full extent can be beneficial in the government service. In Thailand, every Thai citizen is required to carry a national identity card. Personal data of each person such as date of birth, height, blood type, religion and occupation, including registered address and individual photograph image, are kept in the Central Registration Database Systems (CRDS). The CRDS is operated by the Department of Local Administration under the supervision of the Ministry of Interior. In order to maximize the benefits from this database, the CRDS is shared by other authorized government agencies. The Royal Thai Police Department is one of the government agencies that also share the information from the CRDS. Frequently, the individual registration database and photographs from CRDS are needed to support crime investigation. This research therefore, investigates how the Thai government could utilize the existing database system to aid in the crime investigation process. It then suggests an effective method of image retrieval to support police officers when searching criminal records from a Central Registration Database Systems. The research begins with an exploratory study of the use and sharing of information amongst the government agencies in developing countries. It examines the use of existing technology and how the Government uses technology to access information. There are two major objectives in this research. The first one addresses how value can be added to the present data in the existing system. The author chooses to focus on the area of crime investigation and evaluate two existing image retrieval methods, in order to determine the most suited one from crime investigation process in Thailand. The second objective is to examine and evaluate the attitudes and perceptions of the Thai police towards acceptance of IT usage in the crime investigation process. The results are then was compared with the literature on barriers to the adoption of IT and some of the more recently developed Technology Acceptance Models, which is also used to explain the findings.

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Unless otherwise indicated, the views expressed in this thesis are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the University of Wollongong.