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The agency for personal data protection is taking up the duty of dealing with the cases connected with the advertising agencies having access to the citizens’ cell phone numbers which they use for commercial purposes by sending text messages to them. This issue has become a serious problem for all of us.

It turns out that it is simply a violation of the law in case the owner of that particular cell phone number has not given his consent on such a thing. The Head of the Personal Data Protection Agency at Ministry of Justice Shushan Doydoyan told us that they have already taken up dealing with this case. She also said that they organized a meeting with the legal departments of mobile operators in Armenia on February 15, during which they expressed their concern over this question and received all the necessary answers.

Shushan Doydoyan then noticed that during their meeting with the representatives of the Armenian mobile operators it turned out that not everything depends on the mobile service providing companies, plus it was also revealed that in Armenia there is such a phenomenon called “black market”.

“It turns out that some people having no jurisdiction have have an access to all the staff connected with the mobile data, so they are free to provide services to any company illegally. This is why these people can send advertisements via text messages to the citizens. So, this issue is out of the mobile operators’ jurisdiction. This is a serious problem but it is also hard to find those people,” described director Doydoyan emphasizing that they are going to cooperate with the police to find the right way to deal with such questions.

The Head of the Personal Data Protection Agency has also informed that as a result of their meetings and discussions a common option of combat will be adopted soon so the citizens and NGOs as well would have access to the guide books through which they would be able to know what to do in such cases.