Decree Number 40 on data-retention from the citizens’ electronic communications, adopted and developed in Bulgaria by the Interior Ministry (IM) and the State Agency of Information Technologies and Systems (SAITS), gathered about 200 people for a discussion on March 19 at Bulgarian news agency (BTA).

Bulgaria’s ombudsman Ginyo Ganev, the Social-Democratic Forum and the civil initiative “Electronic Border” organised the public discussion called ‘Rights and security – the new risks’.

Ganev started to check the texts of the data-retention decree after he was asked to do so by civil organsations who said the decree violates basic human rights and freedoms.

According to Ganev the personal data planned to be collected by the state should be presented only to the relevant bodies but only in specific cases. He said the data-retention decree violates art.32, par.2 and art. 34, par.2 from the Bulgarian Constitution, as well as art. 41, according to which everyone has the right freely to receive information. Moreover, the data-retention decree is in violation of art.8 of Europe’s Convention on the Rights and Freedoms, which foresees the sanctuary of personal life.

According to Bogomil Shopov from Opensource-Bulgaria Society the problem’s aspects are juridical, social, economical and technical, and include human rights issues. Shopov also claimed the Interior Ministry is a not a transparent institution and it does not provide any possibility of civil control over the information that is planned to be recorded.

Shopov further said that Ireland is suing the European Union (EU) over the data-retention directive, in Germany and Italy local authorities had been successfully attacked for adopting the directive, while in The Netherlands various discussions are being organised. He further said only seven countries adopted the data-retention directive in EU.

However, SAITS deputy chairperson Dimitur Stanchev said more than seven countries adopted the directive. The Check Republic and Latvia are among them, while Lithuania and Estonia are in a process of discussing its implementation. He said in Bulgaria what would be recorded included the author, his or her location, the conversation length, the time, and the person contacted.

Stanchev further said the data collected in Bulgaria would be kept for 12 months and if there is no interest in it during this time, it would be automatically deleted.

The European Parliament is planning to revise the data-retention directive in 2010 to find out how it is implemented throughout the EU.