YEREVAN. – There can be no motivation to keep the phone calls’ and location data. Even if the suspicion is toward law enforcement, this information is of no interest to law enforcement. Armenia’s Minister of Justice Rustam Badasyan said this at a press conference Wednesday, referring to the package of amendments to the law on amendments to the Law on Legal Regime of State of Emergency, which envisages locating people's and tracking their phone calls during a state of emergency in the country.

Asked if the public can rest assured that the respective data will be destroyed once the current state of emergency is over in Armenia, the minister replied as follows, in particular: "I am confident that there are and there will be no leaks, especially since it is being carried out by the state body within the framework of the fight against the [coronavirus] epidemic."

He also assured that no data on Armenian citizens shall be accessible for foreign companies.