Workshop entitled “Personal Data Protection and Video Surveillance” held

On 22 May, the Agency for Protection of Personal Data of the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Armenia organised — within the scope of the European Commission instrument “Technical Assistance and Information Exchange instrument”
(TAIEX) — a two-day workshop entitled “Personal Data Protection and Video Surveillance”.

Acting Minister of Justice of the Republic of Armenia Artur Hovhannisyan expressed gratitude to the attendees for participating in the workshop and stated that personal data protection must be based on solid grounds prescribed by law. “It is no coincidence that full protection of personal data underlies the policy of our State. In 2015, we adopted a new Law “On personal data protection”, which is quite up-to-date and provides clear and exhaustive grounds for personal data protection. In addition, the functions of the body exercising control over lawfulness of data processing are envisaged as well,” A. Hovhannisyan said.

According to him, the public very often faces the issue of video and photo cameras, which video record without the permission of a person. “In practice, we face issues, lack of mechanisms and, why not, lack of experience, and to solve this, we enjoyed the support of the European Union and invited international experts to share their experience with us,” the acting Minister noted.

Head of the Agency for Protection of Personal of the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Armenia Shushan Doydoyan also expressed gratitude to the representatives of the European Commission for sharing their experience with their Armenian partners and touched upon the activities carried out by the Agency within that period. Shushan Doydoyan added that a guide on video surveillance, which encompasses the basic rules and principles of video surveillance both in public and private sectors, has already been developed and publicised.

During the working meeting, international experts from 5 EU countries will present the legal and practical mechanisms for the regulation of video surveillance in their respective countries, as well as address the EU legal framework and the comparative analysis of European countries in the sphere of video surveillance, the legislation of the Republic of Armenia on PDP, video surveillance in public and private areas, choice of video surveillance systems, installation and regulation thereof, video retention periods, etc.

The event was also attended by Head of the Cooperation Section of the Delegation of the European Union to Armenia Hoa-Binh Adjemian, as well as around 50 representatives from state administration bodies and non-governmental organisations concerned.