YEREVAN. – Much money will be spent to process, study, manage the base, identify, transmit those data from body to body, whereas our country is in a serious socioeconomic crisis today. Edmon Marukyan, chairman of the opposition Bright Armenia party and head of the Bright Armenia faction in parliament, stated this during Monday’s National Assembly debates on the draft to intervene—due to the coronavirus—in the rights to protection of personal data, the inviolability of the private and family life, and the freedom and secrecy of communication.

Referring to the matter of trust toward the government, Marukyan said: "The whole government, the ruling faction, all have Viber, WhatsApp and other programs and talk with it inside the country. Why? Don't you trust your systems? Why are you talking with those systems? Therefore, the issue of trust also has a problem in it."

Marukyan suggested thinking seriously about resolving the problems of people currently on the verge of poverty. "Bright Armenia is against this draft," the MP stressed. "We are against giving up our freedoms, and in the case when it has zero impact in connection with the spread of the pandemic."