Armenia moves to register every phone, drawing surveillance concerns

By Siranush Adamyan

Armenia's government has approved a draft law that would require every mobile phone in the country to be registered in a central database and would bar unregistered devices from connecting to local networks.

The bill amends the 2005 Law on Electronic Communications. It creates a single registry of International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) numbers — the unique 15-digit code built into every handset — and links each device to its user and to the SIM or eSIM cards it runs. Operators would be required to refuse service to any phone whose IMEI is not registered.

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan framed the measure as the end of Armenia's grey phone market. Speaking at a June 25 government session, Pashinyan said the mobile phone trade was the country's largest shadow market and that the era of unregistered handsets was ending. Phones that could not be shown to have entered the country legally would no longer function, he said, describing such a device as something you could use to crack a walnut but not as a phone. He said the government had studied the change for about a year and a half.

Under the draft, the law would take effect one year after publication. Phones already in use or imported before that date would be automatically entered into the registry free of charge. People importing a phone for personal use would afterward have to register it and, in some cases, pay a state duty within six months of crossing the border. Travelers using roaming would have their service suspended 30 days after entry if their device remained unregistered. Tablets, modems, smartwatches, routers, and other IMEI-bearing devices fall outside the law.

The registry would be operated jointly by the mobile operators through a body the draft calls the Administrator, working alongside a state manager. One clause has drawn particular attention: it would allow the Administrator to use the registry's data to provide other digital services to state and local government bodies, as well as to private companies and individuals.

The government says the system would curb tax losses, rein in counterfeit and smuggled handsets, protect consumers, and strengthen cybersecurity. Officials say it was drafted by the Ministry of High-Tech Industry, the State Revenue Committee, telecom regulators, and mobile operators, drawing on the experience of Eurasian Economic Union member states and on guidelines from the GSMA, the global association of mobile operators.

Privacy and surveillance concerns

The proposal has drawn criticism from cybersecurity specialists. Artur Papyan, a cybersecurity expert, wrote on Facebook that the registry would allow the state to see who is on the network, which device they are using, and when. He warned that the other-digital-services provision could let data gathered to fight smuggling be repurposed for unrelated ends, including by private firms. Concentrating the records of some 2.5 million users in one system would make it a target for hackers, he argued, and a database outage could leave subscribers cut off — a risk he illustrated by pointing to the recent failure of a state portal used to register first-grade pupils. Papyan also questioned the anti-theft rationale, saying owners of stolen phones rarely get help from police, while the same tools could be used to locate protesters or critical journalists.

IMEI registries around the world 

Mandatory IMEI registration is not new. The model Armenia is proposing — a positive list, in which a phone works only if it is registered, rather than a blacklist that blocks only reported-stolen devices — is used mainly by states that are not full democracies. Turkey, which Freedom House rates Not Free, lets a foreign phone run for 120 days before it must be registered for a fee that climbs each year; for 2026 it was set at about $1,300 — often more than the phone itself. Egypt, also rated Not Free, introduced a comparable system in 2025, charging a one-time levy of 38.5 percent of a device's value and blocking unregistered handsets after a 90-day grace period; the end of an exemption window in January drew an online backlash. Neighboring Azerbaijan has run a similar registry since 2013, blocking any phone not registered within 30 days and charging duty on devices worth more than $800.

A handful of democracies use the same approach, but for narrower ends. Chile and Colombia built positive registries to curb phone theft, tying each device to its owner. In Colombia, the digital rights group Fundación Karisma and Privacy International found that after years the system had not meaningfully cut theft while raising privacy concerns, and noted that the GSMA itself recommends the less intrusive route of simply blacklisting stolen phones. India's Central Equipment Identity Register works that way: it lets owners block a lost or stolen phone across all networks at no cost, without registering every device. Most established democracies, including the United States and European Union members, do not require registration at all and rely on the industry's shared stolen-phone database.

Digital rights groups have long warned that such registries carry risks. Privacy International says linking handsets and SIM cards to identity documents in a central database enables location tracking and can expose users to surveillance where data protection is weak. Groups including the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Access Now have raised similar concerns about function creep, in which data collected for one purpose is later used for another.

The dangers are sharpest under authoritarian governments. In March, Myanmar's military junta announced its own IMEI registration scheme; rights researchers warned it would let the regime tie a person to a specific handset and SIM and disable devices remotely.

In Armenia, the draft now moves toward parliament. By setting the entry into force a year after publication, the government has left time for debate over a system that would touch every phone in the country.