The second reading of the legislative package on surveillance with cameras in public places is not included in the agenda of the upcoming sessions of the National Assembly. So far, it is not clear when the parliament will hold a discussion about this controversial project with the representatives of political society. Such a discussion scheduled for the end of last week was postponed.
At the beginning of June, the Ministry of Internal Affairs brought to the parliament a package of changes in “On Police” and a number of related laws, which were quickly adopted in the first reading without public discussions. After the final adoption of the law, businessmen will be obliged to install cameras at the entrances and other sides of the buildings of food outlets, pharmacies, shops, restaurants, hotels and other types of business structures larger than 50 square meters, and to give their footage to the Police 24/7.
Months ago, Gor Madoyan called 911 and reported the fire when he saw plumes of smoke rising from the building while walking on one of the streets of Yerevan. It turned out that the restaurant’s oven emitted an excessive amount of smoke, there was no fire. Less than 30 minutes later, Gor was called from an unknown number, from the restaurant. – “I don’t know who called, that is, I wasn’t even interested in who called, what motivated him, all I was interested in was how my phone number reached someone else through a state structure, probably through a state structure.” He emphasized in a conversation with Azatutyun.
After such a rapid leak of data from the Rescue Service, Gor Madoyan says he wants to imagine how the Police operating within the same Ministry of Internal Affairs will deal with the recordings obtained from thousands of cameras, what is the guarantee that they will not be leaked either.
“Basically, if you have a good acquaintance, if you have good connections, from any point in the middle ring, low ring, or middle ring, you can get the data of any person you are interested in,” Madoyan emphasized.
“The project is not qualified from the point of view of the principles of personal data processing,” Gevorg Hayrapetyan, the former head of the Personal Data Protection Agency, told Azatutyan.
According to him, no one objects that the Police should take advantage of the development of science and technology, but how, it should be regulated by law, the goals of the Police should be clear, why it collects a huge amount of information about citizens.
“These goals, which are even removable, are not justified in any way in the project as to what is necessary to achieve them, in fact, unlimited and without time limits, they are drawing in 24/7 mode, unlimited, large-scale data processing is planned : It is simply not understandable, not justified. However, any processing of data should be based on the principle of proportionality,” Hayrapetyan noted.
Not only are the objectives contradictory and unclear, but the project also contradicts the existing legislation of Armenia on data protection, it is disproportionate in terms of interference with people’s rights, it is not clear what limitations are placed before the Police in terms of applying the enormous data collected, what responsibility awaits the officer. , who, for example, will sell the sensitive information in his hands for any reason.
The next issue is cyber security.
“Any business owner who installs cameras and joins this common system becomes a part of this system. And the vulnerability of the overall system is at the same level as its most vulnerable piece. In this sense, if an entrepreneur installed a bad camera and did not protect it properly, it does not matter how well the Police itself protects the technical means placed in its central apparatus, if any other participant in the system did not properly implement security measures, then consider the whole system unsafe.” – emphasized Gevorg Hayrapetyan.
“In such circumstances, it is generally the impression that the Ministry of Internal Affairs is simply trying to oblige the private sector to buy technical means for the Police with the mentioned legislative initiative,” wrote the CyberHUB laboratory in its published opinion, finally proposing to withdraw the project for revision.
