Concerns over the image of the party and the ministry seem to be leading factors in a possible backdown by Bulgaria's Interior Ministry on its demand to get direct access to mobile and internet communication data.

On January 8, Bulgarian daily Dnevnik quoted unnamed politicians from the ruling GERB party as saying that it was 99 per cent certain that the disputed sections of amendments to the Electronic Communications Act (ECA) would be dropped.

According to the unnamed sources, GERB and the Interior Ministry do not want to be accused of violating civil rights, an accusation that could hurt their image, Dnevnik said.

Later in the day, emerging from a meeting with civil organisations on January 8, Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov told journalists that the Interior Ministry contemplated giving up the option of direct access to internet traffic, Bulgarian news agency BTA said.

Commenting on announced civil protests planned for January 14 against the proposed amendments to the ECA, Prime Minister Boiko Borissov said, according to Dnevnik, "the problem has been solved, there will not be any going into people's private space, this possibility will only be used in the investigation of serious crimes".

A final decision, however, was not expected until an informal working group would decide what measures would replace the direct access to mobile and communication data, Dnevnik said.

"In the past 20 years, such distrust of the Interior Ministry has accumulated, and we cannot expect this to change soon and convince the public that their right will be respected," Anastas Anastasov, head of the interior committee and member of GERB, was quoted by Dnevnik as saying.

The possibility of changing the amendments was first mentioned by Tsvetanov on Bulgarian National Television (BNT) on January 5, when he suggested that instead, a two-hour deadline might be introduced by which operators would have to produce requested data.
If they would fail to do so, Tsvetanov said, serious fines would follow.

While privacy advocates and representatives of non-governmental organisations welcomed the move by the Interior Ministry, mobile operators said they would be unable to react as quickly as Tsvetanov wanted.

Asked by Dnevnik to comment, only Vivacom said they would comply with requirements from the Interior Ministry, while both Globul and M-Tel said it was not possible to produce the required data within two hours. Both operators did not, however, say how much time they would need.

Alexandar Kashumov, head of the legal team at the Access to Information Programme, questioned the need for the two-hour deadline, saying that current law already provides an hour deadline for the delivery of requested data.

"Following hot leads, searches and seizures have no place in the Electronic Communications Act," Kashumov said. "This text is about collecting operative information, what is the need for this urgency?" Dnevnik quoted Kashumov as saying.

A realistic option, according to Kashumov, was an eight-hour deadline after receipt of the request from the Interior Ministry.

According to Kashumov, the proposal of an unrealistically short deadline was done to show that operators could not comply with the requirement, after which the demand for direct access could again be raised.

Earlier, Deputy Interior Minister Veselin Vouchkov had already said that the ministry might be willing to limit the type of crime for which the access could be used to serious crime, carrying a minimum sentence of five years imprisonment, if certain specific "serious crimes, such as kidnappings and child pornography" could be added.