"Fact" daily writes:
The topic of biometric passports, which is officially presented as an upgrade and a step towards a digital future, raises serious doubts.
"Shadow on the Passport" recently published by the "No Turkification" initiative. How France and the oligarchic clan captured the digital identity of Armenia" investigation revealed the corruption scheme of the authorities, which transferred the control over the digital identity of Armenia to the French company IDEMIA.
It is noted that the latter and its predecessors' "global expansion has been accompanied by confirmed corruption scandals, where bribing government officials has become a standard tool for winning contracts." In particular, specific examples of scandals in Nigeria, Bangladesh, Kenya, and Angola are cited.
Moreover, the parliament in Kenya once voted to ban the activity of that company for a period of 10 years. IDEMIA was accused of human rights violations during the implementation of the digital identification system. By the way, according to the investigation, in 2024 in Mali, the company blocked the population census database, thereby disrupting the elections and allowing France to maintain influence in its former colony.
In 2017, the same equipment became a tool to rig election results in Kenya. Now that technology, which carries the potential of a political tool, has been introduced in the heart of Armenia, on the eve of the elections.
In addition, it is noted that 90 percent of that company belongs to the investment giant Advent International, which is a supplier of spare parts for the Turkish Bayraktar ATS. The documents prove that the Azerbaijani army used such anti-aircraft missiles against Nagorno-Karabakh.
Even on the website of the Armenian American Committee, there is a publication calling on Advent International to stop the supply of military equipment to Turkey. Thus, according to the authors of the investigation, Pashinyan not only enriched the oligarchic clan, but also transferred the strategic biometric data of the population to a structure related to the production of weapons, and these weapons were used against his state.
In other words, it is no small thing that the price of biometric passports for the population has increased 25 times, from 1000 drams to 25,000 drams, and the personal data of the Armenian people have become "part of a foreign strategic game".
As for Armenia, the investigation revealed the existence of a number of personal and political connections.
Details in today's issue of "Past" daily
