Armenia: Surveillance Bill Threatens Rights

(Yerevan, October 31, 2024) – The Armenian government’s bill for the mandatory installation of video surveillance systems with 24-hour police access throughout the capital, Yerevan, is unjustified and interferes with privacy and other rights, Human Rights Watch said today. 

The bill, which passed its first parliamentary review in June 2024, requires private entities in Yerevan to install the cameras and provide police with live feed and access to recordings on demand. Officials have also indicated they intend to use artificial intelligence (AI) video analytics to monitor the recordings.

“Widespread, indiscriminate video surveillance would inevitably lead to unjustified intrusions on privacy and cannot be defended as a measure necessary to improve public security in a democracy,” said Giorgi Gogia, associate Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Mass surveillance in public spaces would have a chilling effect on fundamental civil and political rights.”

Armenian authorities posted the bill on the government’s website in December 2022, but the government only greenlighted it in April 2024. Parliament is expected to vote on the bill before the end of the year.

The authorities should scrap the bill, or at the very least suspend consideration of it, until it is amended to comply with international human rights standards. They should also consider requesting the Venice Commission, the Council of Europe’s advisory body on constitutional matters, to assess the bill.

The bill, proposed by the Interior Ministry, envisages amendments to nine laws, nominally to “strength[en] the security of public spaces.” The bill’s provisions require many private entities—including but not limited to financial, communications (electronic and postal), educational, pharmaceutical and retail facilities—to install CCTV cameras that cover the entrances and all sides of buildings and conduct continuous surveillance of people in their areas of operation. Police would be entitled to 24-hour access to live video feeds and to demand access to recordings, which would have to be retained for 15 days. 

The general monitoring of people through widespread video surveillance systems is “almost invariably disproportionate,” the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has found. These systems collect personal data related to individuals’ identities, movements, and associations, and therefore should be subject to clear limitations to protect the right to privacy and other rights, Human Rights Watch said.

The surveillance proposed in the draft amendments is indiscriminate, as it does not involve any form of targeting or selection and does not require the authorities to show reasonable suspicion or probable cause as a basis for tracking a particular person. 

Armenia’s Data Protection Agency concluded that the draft amendments would provide for “unlimited and continuous processing of personal data” and would represent a “disproportionate interference” with the right to privacy.

The Justice Ministry, the Public Defender’s Office, the Central Bank, and the parliament’s expertise and analytical department also criticized the legislative initiative. They questioned the necessity and proportionality of such broad surveillance. However, the government remained undeterred by these criticisms and slated the bill for a parliamentary vote this year. 

The government should publish the justification, purpose, and intended applications for widespread video surveillance and use of AI analytics, along with a clear plan to mitigate any human rights risks, and ongoing plans for oversight and accountability, Human Rights Watch said. Human Rights Watch wrote to the relevant Armenian authorities in August seeking clarifications and assurances over the proposals but has not received any replies.  

While the proposed amendments do not specifically cover remote biometric identification, video analytics software, or other types of algorithmic surveillance technology, the deputy interior minister stated in a media interview that the authorities intend to use artificial intelligence tools to analyze CCTV footage. 

The mere existence of video surveillance in public areas can have a chilling effect on fundamental rights, such as freedoms of assembly, association, and expression, as well as the right to privacy. Using artificial intelligence to review widespread surveillance would heighten those risks, Human Rights Watch said. States should refrain from using facial recognition and other AI analytics technology in public spaces, as it constitutes ramped-up mass surveillance.

Armenia is a party to a number of international and regional treaties enshrining the right to privacy and data protection rights. Restrictions on fundamental rights, in this case the right to privacy, must be provided for in law, necessary in a democratic society, and proportionately to achieve a legitimate purpose. 

The UN Human Rights Committee (HRC), the international expert body that authoritatively interprets the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), has held that “any interference with privacy must be proportional to the end sought and be necessary in the circumstances of any given case.” The European Court of Human Rights has also repeatedly set out the same test of legality, necessity, and proportionality to assess the legitimacy of measures that interfere with the right to privacy under the European Convention on Human Rights.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has recommended that surveillance measures in public spaces should be targeted and should address a concrete legitimate aim, such as averting a specific threat to public safety or security that is significant enough to outweigh their adverse human rights impacts.

The high commissioner said that “[a] person’s image constitutes one of the key attributes of her or his personality as it reveals unique characteristics distinguishing her or him from other persons. Recording, analyzing and retaining someone’s facial images without her or his consent constitute interferences with a person’s right to privacy.”

In an earlier report, the high commissioner warned that “[t]he use of facial recognition technology brings about significant risks for the enjoyment of human rights, including the right of peaceful assembly. … When facial recognition technology is used on a large number of people, even low rates of error may result in the inaccurate flagging of hundreds of individuals.”

“It is clear that the proposed surveillance bill is inconsistent with Armenia’s international obligations,” Gogia said. “The government should rescind the legislative initiative or at least pause its adoption until it addresses the concerns raised by local and international actors. Sending it for the Venice Commission analysis would be a critical first step.”