National Assembly Adopts Bill Interfering with Privacy Rights

The National Assembly has adopted, in the first reading, with 57 votes in favor, 24 against, and 1 abstention, the bills amending the Law on the Legal Regime of State of Emergency and the Law on Electronic Communications.

MP Lilith Makunts from the 'My Step' faction noted that 'My Step' will vote in favor of the bill and will present proposals. During the discussion, the 'Prosperous Armenia' and 'Enlightened Armenia' factions stated that they would vote against.

The bill stipulates that during a state of emergency, intervention may be made in the rights to personal data protection, the inviolability of private and family life, freedom of communication, and privacy, when necessary.

The proposed legislation involves the collection of data necessary to determine the location of services used by customers of public electronic communication services. It also collects data on phone numbers that have direct or indirect (mediated) connections with the customer's phone number, as well as the date, start, and end details necessary to establish phone call initiation. In the case of call forwarding or transfer, the data regarding the phone number to which the call was forwarded is collected.

When providing data by the operator of the public electronic communication network, any form of monitoring on the content transmitted via public electronic communication networks is prohibited, including recording or documenting the content of phone conversations and voice messages.

The data processing is carried out exclusively until the state of emergency is lifted or until the respective measures are ceased. Processing the data for purposes other than those set forth, as well as storing, using, or disseminating it in violation of the established procedure, and not anonymizing or destroying the data as required by this law, may entail legal liability.

According to the bill, the transmitted or processed data is anonymized, while personal data will be destroyed following the end of the state of emergency, within the timeframe and procedure established by the Government of the Republic of Armenia when declaring a state of emergency. In all cases, personal data must be destroyed no later than one month after the end of the state of emergency.