The Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association (GYLA) has voiced concern about a recent wave of abusive and intimidating phone calls targeting individuals involved in ongoing protests against the foreign agents law, alleging a violation of the processing of personal data, possibly involving the use of state agencies’ databases.
In its May 8 statement, the GYLA emphasizes that since May 7, participants in the protests against the foreign agents law, as well as human rights defenders, and in many cases their family members, have been receiving phone calls from foreign and Georgian numbers, and after answering, they are verbally abused and intimidated.
“Taking into account the frequency, the systematic nature and the shortlisted recipients of the calls selected by a specific feature, these calls give rise to reasonable suspicion that the data are being processed illegally using the databases of the respective state authorities,” the GYLA says.
The GYLA calls upon the Inspector of the Data Protection Service, Lela Janashvili, and other persons responsible for the issue to fulfill the obligation imposed by the law to study the issue and present the position of the Service to the society.
Following the GYLA’s statement, the Personal Data Protection Service said that it is studying the legality of the processing of citizens’ telephone numbers.
“Within the scope of its competence, the Personal Data Protection Service is studying the legality of the processing of citizens’ telephone numbers by unknown persons,” reads the statement.
NOTE: This news was updated on May 8 at 22:30 to include the statement from the Personal Data Protection Service.
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