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The Cabinet looks for ways of taking the bill proposing amendments and supplements to the RA Law on the state of emergency regime and the RA Law on electronic communication through the National Assembly, PM Nikola Pashinyan said on Tuesday during a Facebook live.  

The bill, enabling the government to use the citizens’ cell phone location data to legally track and monitor their mobile phone information, was rejected by the parliament in the second reading on Tuesday. As the authors of the law said, the measures are to be taken in order to find people that the person with the virus has come in contact with so they can enforce quarantine controls and monitor their movement. Opposition lawmakers pointed to the undemocratic nature of the law that would intervene with the rights of the citizens to data protection, privacy, the inviolability of personal and family life as well as freedom of communication.

As Pashinyan said the legislation is aimed to curb the spread of coronavirus in the country. “All citizens have mobile phones, and the system will operatively reveal the circle of contacts who could be infected but were unaware of that. These legislative changes will enable us to make use of mobile data, first for raising the citizens’ awareness, and secondly, for defining the circle of interactions to find potentially infected people,” said the PM.