A protest against Directive 2006/24/ЕC about data retention

A protest against Directive 2006/24/ЕC, which allows traffic data to be gathered for every single Internet user, was held yesterday (07.02.2008) in Sofia.

The demonstrators made it clear, that retention of e-mail correspondence, Internet traffic and any similar information, which is to be kept for 1 year, is directly violating the rights, laid in the Constitution of the Republic of Bulgaria and it cuts across all moral principles.

The demonstrators were also against the requirement, which states that the user should be identified by his/her IP address, together with other information such as personal citizen number, address on which the service is being used and the user’s full name.

Data retention gives the State enormous powers. With this tool it is able to watch and control its citizen’s personal lives, and this is in violation of the fundamental right of inviolability of personal life and protection of the secret of documentation. It is formally justified with the necessity of protection of the national security and crime prevention: namely terrorism and child pornography distribution

This regulation makes it obligatory for the providers of Internet services to keep and submit data on their expense, thus indirectly terminating smaller Internet providers and making the others invest huge amount and efforts to fulfill the requirement. The process of data retention is impossible without filtering all the packages which is risky, because the content may be read and directed in another direction; that was one of the numerous comments, heard at the protest.

People in Bulgaria don’t trust the authorities, who are supposed to keep and access the information, because of the number of violations done while keeping other personal data and because of the special characteristics of our political system. All these things add some more worries for our rights in the global net.

The campaign was covered by all majour Bulgarian TV networks, newspaper and electronic media. Electronic Frontier Bulgaria (EFB) representatives took part in several TV talk shows, debating the very same problem.

Electronic Frontier Bulgaria, who organized the protest, stated that next week they were going to attack the regulation in the Supreme Administrative Court and they were going to start discussion with political parties in order to find adequate answer to the Directive, which violates basic human rights. The Constitutional Court is expected to be approached, as well as broader informational campaign on the subject, which will be targeted on clarifying the seriousness of the regulation’s requirements.

Contacts:

+359 897 615128

board @ opensource-bulgaria.org