Sofia city hall municipal company Parking and Garages may be fined 5000 to 100 000 leva for forcing residents of the city centre to expose in public their personal data if they wanted to park for free in front of their homes in the so-called blue zones, where parking is otherwise paid, Monitor daily quoted lawyers as saying on April 8.

Bulgaria’s Commission for Personal Data Protection told Monitor that it was uncertain that the city hall or the company would be fined, as the case was “very complicated”. The commission first has to find out who was to blame for the public exposure of personal data. According to the legislation, mainly administrators were being fined for misuse of personal data, Monitor said. The commission would discuss the case on April 9 to decide on a future course of action.

Nikolai Alexandrov, director of Parking and Garages, introduced the unofficial practice of free parking in exchange for exposing documents behind the windscreen of their vehicles. However, no one warned the people that not all of the information in the documents, in particular the personal data, had to be provided, Monitor said.

Sofia mayor Boiko Borissov told the newspaper that the city hall would warn the citizens to blot out their EGNs (personal identification numbers) from the documents they expose. Currently, there was no other way for parking in the blue zones, he said.

The personal data protection commission also advised all citizens, who expose their documents, to cover their EGNs and other personal data on them.

Contacted by The Sofia Echo, the city hall was not available for comment.