EDRI - Big Brother Awards

BBA Awards Italy 2008

Wed, 21 May 2008 19:37:08 +0100

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The Italian Big Brother Awards for 2008 were presented on 10 May 2008 during an e-privacy convention in Florence. The Italian jury is formed by 6 jurors who have to vote over 26 nominations, out of which 5 are for the positive award.

The public institution award was received by the Ministry of Economics for its very ample checking instruments. The institution is not the one to prove the citizens are breaking the law, instead it requires the tax payers to prove they are on the right side of the law. With the excuse of fighting tax evasion, the institution has been recently empowered to create mass personal (bank, health etc.) data filing, an obvious and useless violation of the

Big Brother Awards - France 2007

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 21:12:02 +0000

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On 21 March 2008, Paris was the host of the French Big Brother awards ceremony for the year 2007.

For the second time President Nicolas Sarkozy was excluded from the competition on grounds of "genetic predisposition" for attacks to personal life and freedoms. The jury has reached the conclusion that Mr. Sarkozy's problem must be of genetic source and therefore he should be considered legally "irresponsible" of his repeated acts against private life and fundamental freedoms.

The Constitutional Council received the State award for having validated a new Sarkozy law on "safety imprisonment" which allows for imprisonment of people considered dangerous by experts and not judges.

Bulgarian Big Brother Awards

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 20:04:45 +0000

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On 28 January 2008, the Access to Information Programme and EDRi-member Internet Society Bulgaria presented the Big Brother negative awards.

The Big Brother award was presented to the Ministry of Interior for publishing data from the passports and criminal conviction records of two BBC journalists who were shooting a documentary in Bulgaria.

The Sramota (or Shame diploma) was presented to the Bulgarian Council of Ministers for their decision to publish in the State Gazette of October 2007 the names, permanent addresses and the personal numbers of the owners of land, which were expropriated for the construction of the south road circle in Sofia.

Among the nominees for the anti-award this year were also the Traffic

Czech Big Brother Awards 2007

Wed, 19 Dec 2007 19:31:34 +0000

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A panel of nine experts including journalists and civic associations' members chose the awards for this year BBA winners at the ceremony on 13 November 2007 in Prague, from more than 70 nominations.

The Ministry of Interior of the Czech Republic received the award in the category Lifetime Menace for having ignored basic citizen privacy protection rights in elaborating the National Action Plan of Fighting Terrorism (NAP). During the elaboration process of NAP the Private Data Protection Office was not invited for discussion in issues. The Convention for the Protection of Individuals with regard to Automatic Processing of Personal Data No. 108 of the Council of Europe, adopted by the Czech Republic is not mentioned

Big Brother Awards 2007 - Austria and Switzerland

Wed, 21 Nov 2007 19:19:34 +0000

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The Big Brother Awards ceremonies in Austria and Switzerland took place in the past weeks in Viena, on the 25 October 2007 and in St Gall, on the 9 November 2007, respectively.

The Swiss ceremony of the 8th edition of Big Brother Awards was organised by the associations "droitsfondamentaux.ch" and EDRI-member Swiss Internet UserGroup (SIUG).

The award for the State and for the entire work was received by the Federal Councillor Christoph Blocher. In the Business category the insurance company HELSANA of Zurich was the winner and CFF and OFT were awarded in the Work place category.

The Austrian Big Brother Awards was organised in 2007 by Linux User Group Austria and EDRI-members quintessenz and VIBE!AT .

"Oscars for Data Leeches" - German Big Brother Awards 2007

Wed, 24 Oct 2007 20:44:10 +0100

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The 2007 Ceremony for the German Big Brother Awards called "Oscars for Data Leeches" took place on 12 October in Bielefeld when the jury had the difficult task of choosing from more than 500 nominations. The negative Big Brother Awards Germany, which have started in 2000, are organised by EDRI-member, FoeBuD Association.

For the category Workplace, the winner of this year award was Novartis Pharma GmbH company for having spied on its employees. Although the company has joined the "FairCompany Initiative", has committed itself to the "Voluntary Self-control For The Pharmaceutical Industry" code of conduct and boasts on its respect for fair work conditions and human rights, at the same

Winner Dutch Big Brother Awards 2007: 'You'

Wed, 26 Sep 2007 20:09:59 +0100

The Dutch Big Brother Award 2007 in the Individual category has been awarded to the Dutch citizen. He is the biggest threat to privacy according to the jury. Due to indifference - "I have nothing to hide" - and lack of interest in what happens to their personal data, citizens share responsibility for the disappearance of privacy in The Netherlands. While Time magazine praised 'You' as person of the year, the jury gives 'You' an award for your acceptance of far reaching intrusions upon your privacy.

In the Corporate category the Dutch railroad service (NS) were the winner. It has a dominant role in the implementation of a privacy intruding smart card for public transportation. The system will collect, keep and use personally identifiable data on all travel. The NS, the national rail monopoly, penalise those who wish to travel anonymously.

The Italian Big Brother Awards for 2007

Wed, 23 May 2007 18:45:09 +0100

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On 19 May 2007, the two-day e-Privacy Conference in Florence hosted the Big Brother Awards Italy. The candidates for the awards were selected by a jury made of seven members.

The people's choice price "The People's lament" was won by far by Telecom Italia especially for the Tavaroli & Co case when a vast system of illegal eavesdropping of telephone conversations was discovered under the company's umbrella. The company's financial maneuvers and court actions have also contributed to its victory.

The Municipality of Milan won the award "The Worst Public Agency" for having installed several cameras in the city starting with public parks without giving any information on who would use the recorded data and for having

Nominations for Big Brother Award Italy 2007 are now open

Thu, 12 Apr 2007 18:31:18 +0100

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The official start of the call for nominations for the Italian Big Brother Award (BBA) 2007 began on 2 April 2007 and will last until 30 April.

In a scenario where privacy is all the time attacked by new technologies and doubtful initiatives to protect our "security", the BBA is meant to highlight the worst offenders of privacy, who often can take advantage of the very minor attention by official media.

In the best tradition of the Internet, the BBA is also meant as a way to have fun. Privacy is a serious thing, but having a laugh helps protecting it better.

For this reason, during the award ceremony - which will take place in Florence (Italy) at the end of May during the E-Privacy 2007 conference,

French Big Brother Awards 2006

Wed, 31 Jan 2007 19:24:36 +0000

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The French Big Brother Awards event that took place on 20 January 2007 has brought the exclusion from this competition of Mr. Sarkozy, for having already won three of the Orwell prizes during the last three years and thus by far outclassing his competitors.

This year, the jury decided to eliminate Minister Sarkozy, the only personality having been nominated 6 times in 7 editions of the event, for multiple attacks to private life and for having actively promoted surveillance in general.

The organizers of the event, in creating the diplomas for the awards were inspired by a real picture of a fossil found in Niger in 2000, of the biggest crocodile that lived 110 million years ago, called by US

Swiss Big Brother Awards 2006

Wed, 22 Nov 2006 19:19:13 +0000

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On 16 November 2006, Sudhaus cultural centre of Bâle hosted the Swiss Big Brother Awards ceremony of 2006 organised by Archives de l'Etat Fouineur Swiss and the EDRI-member Swiss Internet User Group SIUG.

The jury deciding on the winners included 11 people from various institutions and organizations having acted against control and surveillance. The winners received concrete trophies, a certificate and were mentioned on the "Hall of Shame" list.

The trophy for the category "State" was awarded to the Federal Council of Corpore represented by Christoph Blocher, the head of the Federal Department of Justice and Police for the application of internal security measures involving phone tapping, secret search of information systems and

Czech Republic bestowed Big Brother Awards for the second time

Wed, 08 Nov 2006 18:53:46 +0000

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On 30 October 2006 in Prague the Big Brother Awards for the most egregious data privacy transgressions in the Czech Republic were bestowed for the second time. The event organised by the NGO Iuridicum Remedium was quite a big success reported by many national media. The chief of the Czech data protection office as well as other officials and foreign guests - Meryem Marzouki from EDRi, padeluun from German FoeBud, Alexander Kashamov, of AIP organising BBA event in Bulgaria together with dozens of people enjoyed the evening show.

Thus, for retaining indefinitely the data of its former customers and even of people who have merely made an inquiry with the institution, the "Komercní banka" (which freely translates as "Commercial Bank") will

Big Brother Awards Germany

Wed, 25 Oct 2006 22:11:25 +0100

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The 2006 German Big Brother awards ceremony took place last week in Bielefeld and it was preceded by the demonstration "Freedom instead of Fear" (Freiheit statt Angst) against Security and Surveillance Delusion, where about 300 people protested against the growth of pervasive surveillance in Germany.

For the first time at the German Big Brother Awards, the audience was asked to decide which of the winners should receive the audience award. After the count of the votes, with thirty-two percent of the polls, the prize went to the winner in the Consumer Protection category, the Association of German Insurers, for its “warnings and indications” database, which insurance

Big Brother Awards Italy 2006

Wed, 24 May 2006 19:14:10 +0100

From 19 May to 20 May Florence has hosted the E-Privacy 2006 conference, organized as usual - by the Winston Smith Project with the help of several volunteers.

This edition saw a much larger participation than 2005: the participants could hardly fit the hall of Palazzo Vecchio, and several people had to stand for the whole duration of the event. The number of presentations (19) and participating organizations (14) saw a marked and unexpected growth.

As usual, the Italian Big Brother Awards were given during the conference. Although none of the awards' recipients were present, a mock Darth Vader - prompting hilarity from the public - took the prizes in custody.

The positive prize "Winston Smith - Privacy Hero", which was assigned in 2005 to Stefano Rodotà (former president of the Italian Privacy Authority)

French Big Brother Awards 2006

Wed, 15 Feb 2006 16:27:59 +0000

The 6th edition of the French Big Brother Awards taking place in Paris on 3 February has chosen the following in the 5 different award sections, for causing the most damage to personal privacy.

The Orwell Award for State official - the winner was Jean-Michel Charpin, Directeur de l'Insee (INES) for his participation in the INES project (Electronically Secured National Identity card). By this project he created a direct link to the Ministry of Interior Affairs ignoring the separation between population statistics and police administration. The card will include two biometric identifyers on a RFID chip.

The section for enterprises was won by Lidl (at close range to Carrefour) for having installed 65 video cameras for the surveillance of 60 employees in a store. The company has had similar policies in other countries as well.