In an interview on Bulgarian National Television on January 5 2010, Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov for the first time suggested his ministry might accept changes to hotly disputed sections of amendments to the Electronic Communications Act, which passed their first reading in Parliament in December 2009.

Privacy activists and non-governmental organisations heavily criticized the introduction of real-time, permanent and direct access to mobile phone and online communication data for the Interior Ministry, through what was referred to as an "interface", included in the amendments.

"I accept the possibility that we may relinquish direct access through this interface. But then we will have to find a way to access required information almost immediately after we receive court approval," Tsvetanov said on BNT.

Earlier, Deputy Interior Minister Veselin Vuchkov  had already said the Interior Ministry was ready to make concessions on the amendments, but had excluded compromises on the ministry's direct access to the communication data.

"We could accept a two-hour window, for example, within which the information has to be provided by mobile phone and internet operators," he said.

"If we do not receive the information on time, there should be sanctions for the operator. Let us say that the first time an operator does not comply with a court request to access communication data, the fine would be 100 000 leva, the second time 500 000 leva and with a third offence the operator would lose its licence," Tsvetanov said.

"If we take these kind of measures, I believe the police would have access to necessary information on time in order to solve uncovered crimes," Tsvetanov said.

The biggest problem, according to Tsvetanov, was the severity of crimes for which the access to communication data could be used. The amendments, passed in December, lowered the minimum sentence from five years for serious crime, to two years, triggering criticism that the amendments might be thrown out by the Constitutional Court as unconstitutional. The Bulgarian constitution guarantees the protection of private communication for anything other than serious crimes.

"We are currently looking into ways we can widen the scope of crimes for which this can be used, and try to specify the relevant texts," Tsvetanov said. "This is about striking a balance in the interest of society. I do not want the public or the representatives of non-governmental organisations to be left with the feeling that we want to control or create a kind of Big Brother," Tsvetanov said.