Phone Conversations Will Not Be Wiretapped: Rustam Badasyan on the Draft Law

The Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Armenia has issued a statement addressing the package of draft laws aimed at amending the 'Legal Regime of Emergency Situations' law and the 'Electronic Communications' law.

In his statement, Justice Minister Rustam Badasyan referred to misunderstandings regarding the package of draft laws that were approved in the first reading the previous day concerning these amendments. The minister emphasized that citizens of the Republic of Armenia take their rights and freedoms very seriously, and it is a positive fact that citizens are not willing to compromise any rights and freedoms if adequate explanations are not provided as to why it is necessary to restrict those rights and freedoms, even during a pandemic or state of emergency.

In this context, Minister Badasyan clarified what the draft law is not about, stressing that these restrictions apply exclusively to the state of emergency declared due to the pandemic:

• No restrictions will apply after the state of emergency ends.
• No new data about citizens will be collected or processed.
• Data currently held by operators will be consolidated into a single database for the purpose of combating the pandemic.
• All consolidated data will be subject to destruction after the state of emergency ends.
• This does not imply the disclosure of phone conversations; it is crucial only to record the fact of the call and the location.
• Although the information held by operators will be consolidated, the data processing will occur in the minimum amount necessary to achieve the specified goal. This means that if an individual is not in a risk area, no analysis can be conducted based on the processed data, as this would lead to criminal liability.

Rustam Badasyan also explained why it is necessary to confirm the fact of the call and why this system is effective: 'Let’s suppose a carrier has been in intensive contact with ten individuals. When studying the fact of their locations, it turns out that five of those individuals have been in the same place. If they have been in the same location and have also made calls to each other over the last ten days, this suggests a high probability that these individuals have interacted and could have been infected. In this case, additional actions will be taken per the procedure established by the Government to isolate those individuals, if necessary. The other five individuals, who have spoken with the carrier but have not been in the same location, will no longer be of 'interest'.'