Don’t give your passports to anyone
Editorial
Yerkir.am
March 23, 2007
The political parties use all possible methods to collect the votes of
people in the pre-electoral period. They have already started using
new methods.
One of them is collection of citizens’ passports and other personal
information. This constitutes a serious violation of the law. During
this week’s announcements session at the National Assembly member of
ARF’s Bureau, Deputy Chairman of the National Assembly Vahan
Hovhannissian expressed his concern on this practice.
`The electoral campaign will soon be officially launched but this does
not mean that political campaigning is not in process now. This is
very natural, but we should at least try to minimize violations of the
law. There are several practices I would like to draw our attention
to. Some individuals collect databases of personal information of our
citizens introducing themselves as representatives of NGOs or
political parties.
Some people collect this information on the phone. We cannot stop such
practices. But we have the Law on Personal Data and those who collect
peoples’ passports should know that they are violating the law.
Let me give you some explanations. You are not obliged to give your
passport to anyone. Moreover, your passport is the property of
Republic of Armenia that is issued to you as an identity document. You
should not give your passports to anyone no matter how they introduce
themselves or no matter what they promise in return.
Of course, you are free to give your passport data to these people,
but I can say that this data is protected under the law. If your
voluntarily give your passport data to someone, that can cause serious
problems for you.
They can take loans with your passport, or make some purchases on the
internet ` this will cause problems for you. And you will not be able
to hold anyone accountable because you gave your passport data
voluntarily.
And the most important warning ` no matter who collects your
passports, no matter who writes down your passport information you
will be free in your choice. No one can check how you have voted. This
is the freedom that is ensured for the voters.
The vote is secret. Vote freely and do not give your passports and
your personal information to anyone’, Hovhannissian stated.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
