YEREVAN, JUNE 5, ARMENPRESS. The National Security Service of Armenia, together with Armenian IT experts, designed and developed a pilot program which is capable of safeguarding from any type of phone wiretapping. National Security Service Director Artur Vanetsyan revealed he himself is using the software on his mobile phone.

Speaking in parliament today during a budget performance report at a committee hearing, opposition MP Mane Tandilyan from the Lusavor Hayastan (Luminous Armenia) party asked Vanetsyan about the highly publicized wiretapping case when a phone conversation between himself and another top law enforcement official was leaked online. Tandilyan asked whether now the NSS is protected from similar risks and whether more high ranking officials are also protected, and where the investigation has lead to.

“Regarding the solving of the case, I will refrain from commenting at this moment since the case is under investigation at the Investigative Committee. Regarding phone conversations, generally the protection, in the modern world ensuring 100% confidentially of phone talks is virtually impossible. But before these wiretappings were leaked the NSS had already launched the development of a program with local information sector experts, which had to be utilized and would protect from any kind of wiretapping. This program is employed, it is installed on my phone. This is yet a test version, we are checking all kinds of vulnerabilities. At this moment it is rather protected, and many many experts have already concluded that wiretapping this software is virtually impossible,” Vanetsyan said, adding that the system is entirely made in Armenia.

He said the server is physically located at the NSS headquarters and is entirely encrypted. He said it is protected to such a high level that they can’t even wiretap themselves if they wanted to theoretically.

The NSS Director says if the program passes all tests then the group of government officials who must use it should be decided.

He said the work was done even when he was wiretapped in 2018, but the system was hacked only because he was using roaming from outside the country. “I advise you to not speak too much while using roaming”.

Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan