Submitted by Theresa Kruse on
BigBrotherAwards 2003
After one of the previous year’s awards had gone to Deutsche Post, it was now the turn of Deutsche Post Shop to be pinpointed in the “Workplace” category. Other BigBrotherAwards were given to German retail giant Metro’s Future Store with their clandestine RFID spychip rollout, to the TV and radio licence fee collectors Gebühreneinzugszentrale (GEZ) for their lifetime achievements, and to the US government.
The Jury 2003
Rena Tangens & padeluun FoeBuD e.V., Dr. Thilo Weichert Deutsche Vereinigung für Datenschutz e.V., Frank Rosengart Chaos Computer Club e.V., Werner Hülsmann Forum InformatikerInnen für Frieden und gesellschaftliche Verantwortung e.V., Dr. Fredrik Roggan Humanistische Union e.V., Dr. Rolf Gössner Internationale Liga für Menschenrechte, Lutz Donnerhacke Förderverein Informationstechnik und Gesellschaft e.V.
Awardees 2003
Workplace: Deutscher Post-Shop
The Deutsche Post-Shop-GmbH earns a BigBrotherAward for questionable components of working contracts with the employees of post agencies.
Politics: Federal States
The Federal States Bavaria, Lower Saxony, Rhineland-Palatinate and Thuringia earn a BigBrotherAward for their efforts, riding on the issue of fighting terrorism, to tighten their states' police laws, allowing for drastic restrictions of elementary basic rights and liberties affecting a large number of unsuspicious people.
Consumer Protection: Metro AG
The Future Store Initiative, Metro AG receives an BigBrotherAward for their "Future Store Initiative" in which the Metro Group is propagating the use of transponders or so-called RFIDs ("Radio Frequency Identification" devices) in supermarkets.
Lifetime Award: GEZ
The GEZ ("fee withdrawal centre") earns a BigBrotherAward for their untiring engagement in the relentless detection of public radio and TV licence fee dodgers.
Regional: Ehrhart Körting
The winner of the regional prize of this year's Big Brother Award is the Interior Senator (minister) of the federal (city) state of Berlin, Dr. Ehrhart Körting for his more than dubious justification for the use of the so-called "silent SMS" by Berlin police.
Government Authorities: USA
The government of the USA earns a BigBrotherAward for the coercion of European and especially German airlines into granting various US authorities access to the vast amount of data related to the bookings of all passengers travelling to or via the United States.
Communication: T-Online
The German Internet Service Provider T-Online AG receives an BigBrotherAward for storing the IP adresses of customers with flat rate contracts.
About BigBrotherAwards
The BigBrotherAwards highlight privacy and data protection offenders in business and politics, they have consequently been called “Oscars for data leeches” by the French paper Le Monde. BigBrotherAwards are an international project. 19 countries have so far given these awards for dubious practices.
The German awards are organised and held by ► Digitalcourage. Among the co-organisers are the German Association for Data Protection (Deutsche Vereinigung für Datenschutz, DVD), International League for Human Rights and the Chaos Computer Club.