Armenian special services spend resources on spying on the oppositionists rather than on collecting data about Azerbaijan, Levon Zurabyan, Head of the opposition Armenian National Congress (ANC) Faction, said at today's parliamentary hearings on the bill "On protection of personal data".
Zurabyan said that protection of the citizens' personal data is one of the cornerstones of democracy. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights pays a special attention to this issue and the Constitution of Armenia also points out the need to protect the citizens' personal data.
"In our country, however, the special services use interception, espionage and personal data collection against the oppositionists, and this is a topical problem. In Georgia, for example, numerous archived data on interception of oppositionists were revealed following the shift in power. Armenia experiences the same thing on much larger scales, with the Armenian Constitution and laws being roughly violated. One of the reasons of our failures on the border with Azerbaijan is that our special services and intelligence spend the major part of the resources on spying on the oppositionists rather than on collecting data about the enemy's actions. Otherwise, we would have an absolutely different situation on the front line", he said.
Zurabyan recalled that the record of his private conversation with Vartan Oskanian appeared on the internet two years ago. "We are still waiting for the results of the inquiry into the illegal publication of that private conversation", he said.
Zurabyan, therefore, doubts that the bill is aimed at protecting the personal data of the citizens. The need to adopt the relevant law is dictated by the EU requirements concerning the protection of individual data. These requirements are restricted to elaboration and adoption of a special regime of data storage. The document envisages the principles concerning data reliability and the mechanisms of introduction of a new institution that will regulate the relations between an individual data subject and the data base developer.
The bill includes a provision on creation of an authorized body for personal data protection. That body will reveal and remove the problems in the field of personal data protection. The relevant license will be provided by the Armenian Government. The document forbids application of the personal data, which are not needed in the data collection process. The data are acknowledged legal if developed on a legal basis and with the subject's consent. The data may be transferred to the third countries' state structures with the citizen's consent. The data may be transferred under interstate agreements. The document also bans the transfer of the data to the mass media without the subject's consent. The data may be transferred in the electronic form if an e-signature is available.