I don't know how private you are about your sensitive documents but I am really private about my own. There is a lot of bad stuff that someone can do to your identity if they have your passport information although perhaps I am just overly paranoid about this.
The Thai police aren't exactly known for their wonderful handling of, well, anything really! But in a recent arrest where an idiot foreigner fired a loaded pistol into the air in Thailand and of course, once again it took place in Pattaya.
The guy is a moron for doing this and claimed he "didn't know he can't do that" after the fact. I think he should get in trouble for this and he certainly will since it is not legal for foreigners to own weapons personally in Thailand. I don't think it was cool for them to put his real information on a public forum though.
I suppose it could have just been a terrible mistake because normally the Thai police or any news media in this country really goes out of their way to make sure they don't reveal someone's identity until they have been prosecuted, or if the person is at large or on the run from the police. The above image is pretty representative of what Thai police do all the time when they make an arrest. I'm not really sure why they do it at all, but it may be evidence or maybe because the cops want their pictures in the paper.
I put the red on the image of the guy's passport but the official press release and police photos had it all there for all the world to view. I thought this was quite a bad mistake on their part but then again, the police don't really answer to anyone over here in Thailand. Maybe I complain about it a bit too much but the amount of what I kind of see as just downright silliness as far as law-enforcement protocol over here is concerned is just weird and it seems as though there just aren't any rules.
In my country we would be allowed to sue the police for putting this sensitive information out there, especially before someone is convicted and probably even after they are. I was honestly surprised about this because in the past the police seemed to have some sort of identity protection for people accused of crimes, but not this time!
I won't be in any danger of anything like this happening to me because even if I did have a gun over here, I certainly wouldn't be firing it in public while drunk. Some might think that he'll get what he deserves if his private information is used against him because honestly, a really surefire way to get into big trouble is to buy and use a gun, especially if it is in a country that is not your own.