• On October 17, “Mtavari Channel” aired a journalistic experimental story [1] showing that in Rustavi, dozens of cleaning service employees had their identification cards confiscated by their supervisors on orders from the “Georgian Dream” headquarters. In the story, cleaning service employees specify how many people are in their brigade and confirm they were informed about giving away their ID cards. Additionally, one of the Rustavi cleaning service group supervisors confirms that they did indeed confiscate ID cards from their subordinate employees.

The circumstances indicate that the confiscation of identification documents and collection of voter personal data has a large-scale and systematic nature throughout the country. The involuntary confiscation of identification documents violates current legislation, including the Law of Georgia “On Personal Data Protection [2]”. Moreover, the illegal obtaining, storage, use, distribution, or otherwise making personal data accessible [3] is punishable under criminal law. It is necessary to conduct a swift, thorough, and impartial investigation of all such incidents.