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Germany: Big Brother Awards 2004

01 November 2004

The Big Brother Awards have been organised in Germany since 2000 by the "Association for the Promotion of Public Moved and Unmoved Data Traffic" (Verein zur Förderung des öffentlichen bewegten und unbewegten Datenverkehrs e.V.). This year's awards, which are given to companies, organisations and individuals responsible for personal data violations, took place in Bielefeld on 29 October. The winners were:

* justice minister Brigitte Zypries (for proposed bugging law)

* health minister Ulla Schmidt (for a law on the “modernisation” of public health insurances)

* the Nuremberg Federal Employment Agency (for imposing inquisitive questionnaires on
the long-term unemployed)

* the director of the university of Paderborn (for installing CCTV cameras in lectures theatres and computer rooms to "prevent crime")

* the supermarket chain Lidl (for keeping its employees in "slavery-like" conditions and putting its branches under surveillance)

* the Armex company (which is selling the mobile tracking service TrackYourKid)

* Tchibo direkt (for violating privacy through passing on customers' data to third parties).

The printing company Canon won the "technology" category, for numbering customers' photocopies with invisible serial numbers that link the copy to the photocopy machine and, through shop records, to the person who made it. Canon shop owners have reported requests from the police to implement this practice.

The jury includes, amongst others, the International League for Human Rights, the Chaos Computer Club and the German Association for Data Protection.

www.bigbrotherawards.de for more details (also in English).