Working discussion dedicated to compliance of the Law of Republic of Armenia “On protection of personal data” with the Council of Europe Convention No. 108

On 20 May, a working discussion titled “Compliance of the Law of the Republic of Armenia on Protection of Personal Data with the Council of Europe Convention No. 108 for the Protection of Individuals with regard to Automatic Processing of Personal Data” was held. The event was organised with the financial assistance of Enhance the Right to Data Protection Project under the Council of Europe Eastern Partnership Programmatic Co-operation Framework. The discussion was attended by Deputy Minister of Justice of the Republic of Armenia Suren Krmoyan, Head of the Personal Data Protection Agency of the Ministry of Justice Shushan Doydoyan, Advisor at the Data Protection Unit of the Council of Europe Maria Michaelidou, experts of the Council of Europe, other representatives of state agencies.

Welcoming the attendees, Suren Krmoyan stressed the importance of improving the field of personal data protection both in terms of legislation and its effective and correct application. According to him, the adoption of the Law “On personal data protection” was an extremely important step, thus it must be brought in line with the European standards in order to be able to continue further development of the field of personal data protection in our country. The Deputy Minister, expressing gratitude to the counterparts of the Council of Europe for close co-operation and assistance, emphasised that the work that had been done by the experts could be useful for further improvement of the legislation.

Shushan Doydoyan expressed gratitude to the experts for the work done and noted that the ideas expressed by them can be very useful in terms of practical application of the Law.

The Council of Europe representative Maria Michaelidou, appreciating the role of the Personal Data Protection Agency in the field of personal data protection, noted that it is necessary to make some amendments so that the legislation regulating that field is brought in line with the European standards.

Afterwards, the Council of Europe experts presented the comments, recommendations and opinions included in their reports on “Compliance of the Law of the Republic of Armenia on Protection of Personal Data with the Council of Europe Convention No. 108”, with regard to which the parties exchanged their views.