ArmInfo.Prosperous Armenia faction against the bill on electronic communications. PAP secretary Arman Abovyan stated this during parliamentary briefings. He noted that if the government takes such steps, then it should give a clear explanation of why they need it. Abovyan stated that the Minister of Justice Rustam Badasyan represented the changes in this draft, however, these are more superficial amendments.
Note that the government 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, but not the content of the conversation. This is necessary in order to control contacts in a situation of localization and to prevent the uncontrolled spread of coronavirus infection. <Badasyan told us that in international practice, to this step resort when the situation is heated to the limit and another way out simply no. If the situation is really so tense, then let we will be informed about this. And it is not clear why the leadership of the country with such stubbornly trying to push the project>, - said Abovyan.
The deputy said that the effectiveness of this measure is very doubtful. "The bill should have been adopted before the development of the coronavirus pandemic in Armenia, and now, its adoption will not be effective and will not produce the results that the government is counting on," he said.
In turn, the deputy from the PAP, the press secretary of the head of the faction, Gagik Tsarukyan, Iveta Tonoyan emphasized that the deputies, with the help of lawyers, studied this bill and consider it unacceptable. <This is an invasion of privacy and human rights. Government officials said that such a practice was used in South Korea, however, the bill was passed there when the number of infected did not exceed 30 people. There, perhaps this bill was adopted by the time, but in Armenia the number of people infected with coronavirus is already in the hundreds. We will vote against, especially since the changes in this bill are cosmetic>, Tonoyan emphasized.
Tonoyan noted that the database will be kept for a month, but it is not clear why for so long, because the quarantine lasts only two weeks. <Moreover, this measure can be resorted to if a person has a suspicion of a coronavirus. There are a number of other ways that make it possible, without penetrating a person's private life, to reveal his immediate circle of contacts>, the deputy concluded.