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…

On January 7, about 50 protesters gathered in the centre of Sofia to rally against Bulgaria’s adoption of the European data-retention directive. Under the directive, Internet service providers (ISP) and telecom companies would be required to collect traffic data on their clients. Data collected for telephone calls would include the time the call was made, the number called and, for cellphones, data on the geographical position of the caller. In the case of ISPs, the data would include when and to what email addresses email has been sent, instant message contact names and times and dates they have been contacted, websites visited, and so on. The European directive has been accepted in December 2005. Bulgarian Parliament recently approved the directive, which was published in the State Gazette on January 30 2008. According to protesters, the data retention directive expands the rights of police surveillance and violates many of the instruments…