AIS

AIS reports the number of its employees with disabilities and also provides support to these employees through a Thai language text-to-speech app and employs them at a call centre. AIS demonstrates best practice by reporting how the economic value it generates is distributed among its stakeholders.

AIS has collaborated with Thai national authorities and academic institutions to create the project Aunjai CYBER with courses designed to promote basic digital literacy among people of all ages free of charge. Furthermore, AIS also promotes school connectivity through its programme Digital Library where schools in remote areas receive an internet connection.

AIS demonstrates best practice by having senior-level oversight of cybersecurity. The company also follows industry norms for monitoring, responding to and reporting on security incidents. Furthermore, the company has a number of initiatives for child online safety.

AIS offers support for open source projects. Additionally, it partners with universities on internet of things (IoT) technologies. The company contributes to the tech innovation ecosystem through its incubator Playground and supports social start-ups. AIS also shows its commitment to diversity by reporting the number of women in its technical team. The company supports the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and uses them as a reporting framework.

There is an opportunity for AIS to develop a programme to specifically contribute to digital opportunities for women and girls.

AIS has the opportunity to undertake a third-party impact assessment to understand the impacts of its existing digital skills development programmes.

The company should make a high-level policy commitment to child online safety.

Although AIS is engaged in open source projects, the company can also make a high-level commitment towards open source and standards. Additionally, the company can develop support for entrepreneurs from underrepresented groups and disclose how it considers ethics in its research and development (R&D) activities.

AIS publicly commits to respecting human rights. However, it still has an opportunity to disclose a formal policy commitment covering the ILO core labour rights, including a commitment to uphold the rights to freedom of association and collective bargaining. The company identifies, assesses and takes action to address salient human rights issues in its own operations and in its business relationships. However, it is unclear if the company’s grievance mechanism for workers and external stakeholders allows complainants to remain anonymous. Furthermore, AIS does not engage with stakeholders whose human rights could be impacted by its operations.  

AIS publicly commits to respecting worker health and safety. It also places health and safety expectations on its business relationships and monitors their performance. Furthermore, the company discloses the proportion of its workforce covered by collective bargain agreements. In relation to workforce diversity, the company discloses a breakdown of employees in different employee categories by age and gender. However, it does not disclose employee figures for other indicators of diversity. AIS lacks disclosure on the topics of living wages and working hours. For example, the company does not provide limits on working hours or disclose whether it considers that overtime work must be consensual and paid at a premium. AIS also has the opportunity to make a clear commitment and set time-bound targets to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment.

While AIS has a global tax strategy, it does not assign responsibility for this tax strategy to an executive or board-level individual or group. Furthermore, the company does not disclose a breakdown of its income tax payments in individual tax jurisdictions. The company discloses its approach to lobbying and political engagement in a publicly available policy statement. However, it has no public statement indicating that it does not make political contributions.