site.btaMRF Alerts Interpol, Europol to Misuse of Passenger Data

The Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) has notified the relevant EU institutions, Europol and Interpol of an unprecedented leak and large-scale misuse of personal data of EU citizens and third-countries nationals through the Passenger Name Records (PNR) system, the party's press centre reported on Monday. It is noted that three EU directives, the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and the General Data Protection Regulation have been violated.

MRF indicates that data of over 100,000 citizens of various countries and unlawful use of data extracted from the Passenger Information Unit of the Republic of Bulgaria by Interior Minister Ivan Demerdzhiev, acting State Agency for National Security (SANS) Chair Stancho Stanchev and General Directorate for Combating Organized Crime (GDCOC) Director Martin Zlatkov. According to the political party, the data was disclosed and distributed in the public domain for political purposes and without any connection to any criminal prosecution.

The MRF has similarly alerted the embassies of all countries whose citizens are potentially affected, their respective data protection authorities and the national structures that operate the PNR system, as well as European NGOs that work on the topics of protecting democracy, civil rights and personal data protection.

The issue began with checks into private flights taken by MRF leader Delyan Peevski, including routes, final destinations, passengers and funding. On July 2, Demerdzhiev said in Parliament that Peevski had made 227 departures from Sofia Airport since 2018, including 181 by private aircraft, and that joint bookings with 81 other people were being checked. During the same hearing, Demerdzhiev said Peevski and Constitutional Court judge Desislava Atanasova had travelled together from Sofia to Dubai on April 5, 2024, before later correcting part of his comments and saying the anti-organized crime report he had relied on contained an incorrect date.

Atanasova denied the claim, saying she travelled from Sofia to Istanbul and back on scheduled Turkish Airlines flights and remained in Turkiye between April 5 and 8, 2024. The dispute later focused on discrepancies between Interior Ministry and Border Police data, with Yes, Bulgaria Co-chair Bozhidar Bozhanov saying the first step was to establish which registers had been checked, where the discrepancy had come from and whether any register had been manipulated. Demerdzhiev later said investigators were also checking flight funding, market-rate pricing, possible sanctions-related violations, differing entries and deleted records, adding that many more flights matched in terms of dates and passengers.