The government established the "Department of Administrative Intelligence" under the Cabinet of Thailand on 1 January 1954. Phao Sriyanond was appointed as its first director.[3] On 2 December 1959 it was renamed the Department of Administrative Intelligence and renamed again as the "National Intelligence Agency (NIA)" during the government of Prime Minister Prem Tinsulanonda.[4]
In 1985, the "National Intelligence Act, B.E. 2528 (1985)" made the NIA the lead Thai intelligence agency.[5] The reality as of 2016 was that seven Thai intelligence agencies—the NIA, Army Intelligence, Navy Intelligence, Air Force Intelligence, Armed Forces Security Center, Special Branch Bureau, and Internal Security Operations Command—mostly function independently of one another.[6] In 2017, a plan was hatched to consolidate the efforts of 27 separate Thai intelligence agencies.[1]
In 2019, the government implemented the "National Intelligence Act, B.E. 2562 (2019)," which marked a significant milestone. This act established the National Intelligence Coordination Center (NICC) as an agency within the National Intelligence Agency. The NICC's primary responsibility is to serve as a central hub for coordinating intelligence and counterintelligence efforts with other domestic intelligence agencies and also public authorities.[7]
News reports appearing in early 2020 indicate that Thail intelligence agency, National Intelligence Agency was a customer of Crypto AG, a Swiss company secretly owned by the US CIA and West German Federal Intelligence Service (BND) that manufactured compromised encryption machines. Use of the devices may have allowed its coded messages to be deciphered.[8]
