On 30 March 2020, the Government of Armenia took the initiative to convene an extraordinary sitting of the National Assembly. The only agenda item was the Draft Law on Supplementing the Law on the Legal Regime of the State of Emergency (hereinafter, “the Draft Law”).
While we value the Government’s efforts to protect life and public health, this Draft Law does not accomplish any of these aims. Measures undertaken by the country under a state of emergency must not retreat from the principles of democracy, human rights, and the rule of law. The Draft Law prepared by the Government contains a number of problematic provisions that pose disproportionate and unnecessary restrictions from the standpoint of rights to personal data protection, respect for private and family life, the freedom of communication, and confidentiality.
Under this state of emergency, the right to freedom of movement has already been restricted. The proportionality principle requires the least intrusive solutions to be given preference, taking into account the specific purpose to be achieved. The introduction of additional control mechanisms may undermine the whole system of human rights protection and have irreversible consequences for the functioning of democratic institutions.
The Council of Europe and the European Union have already highlighted the importance of personal data protection in countries combatting the new coronavirus outbreak (COVID-2019).
Questions emerge with respect to the Draft Law. What safeguards and security measures will preclude leaks of personal data or third party access to such data? Where will personal data be stored? There is no link between the personal data to be processed and the specified purpose. How appropriate is it to control the number, duration, and other aspects of telephone calls, which are not directly related to the movement of the person?
Location determination based on mobile communication data, as opposed to GPS, has very low accuracy; hence the benefits of using this method are very questionable. Thus, the intended data collection will not help in any way to combat the pandemic. Furthermore, the toolkit used to process such data is quite expensive and will put a heavy cost burden on the State Budget.
Therefore, we urge not to waste public resources on ineffective collection and processing of data.
The absence of a feasible and effective mechanism to identify and prevent potential abuse caused by the proposed restrictions may not only lead to uncontrollable violations of human rights, without achieving the intended purpose, but also deepen the vulnerability of human life and safety.
We consider the Draft Law to be in gross violation of the rights to personal data protection, respect for private and family life, the freedom of communication, and confidentiality under the state of emergency, and demand its removal from circulation.
In addition, we urge the Government to invest all possible resources and efforts to determine the potential contacts of infected persons and to compel their isolation, as well as to increase testing for the population, which is the most effective means of properly and timely detection of cases.
Others are invited to join this Statement.