ArmInfo. MP from the My Step party, head of the Health and Social Affairs Commission Narek Zeynalyan criticized a bill submitted by the government on monitoring telephone calls of citizens in order to prevent the spread of coronavirus.
<You intend to return to the past and understand who in the last 14 days a citizen infected with a coronavirus has met or contacted. From the point of view of identifying all contacts, I assure you that this bill is not effective>, the deputy noted.
Zeynalyan emphasized that if a citizen who interacted with a person infected with a coronavirus is found on the 5th day after the meeting, this person, of course, has already managed to communicate with other people. "From the point of view of controlling the epidemic, the efficiency factor of the bill you submitted is zero," he noted.
In turn, the secretary of the Prosperous Armenia faction Arman Abovyan stated that this bill raises a lot of questions, while its effectiveness is in question.
<I believe that this bill was submitted too late. If in this way we try to establish a circle of citizens who interacted with people with coronavirus infection, this should have been done from the very beginning. Since then there were much fewer sick citizens. The goal itself is clear to me, but the possibility of implementing it in the bill is in doubt. It is not clear what effect this bill will have, how it will be used, how this base will be stored in the future, or whether it should be destroyed>, Abovyan emphasized. In connection with this bill, the speaker of the National Assembly Ararat Mirzoyan also spoke out. He, in particular, noted: "It is completely unclear to me that the government can be given information about how long two people talked on the phone."
In turn, the Minister of Justice Rustam Badasyan, who introduced the bill, replied that tracking calls is very important. <Imagine the situation that I have discovered a coronavirus. My calls and explanations about whether I met with this or that person will certainly help the relevant structures to take appropriate measures to prevent infection>, Badasyan said. In turn, the speaker said that he considers this measure inappropriate.
The bill, in fact, limits the right to protection of personal data and privacy. According to the document, mobile operators are obliged to provide the government with data on telephone conversations of subscribers, in particular, the location of the subscriber, the beginning and end of the conversation, the contents of the conversation will not be transmitted.