Submitted by Sebastian Lisken on
BigBrotherAwards Germany 2021
The gala took place on 11 June 2021 in Bielefeld and online.
Mobility: The European Commission
The BigBrotherAward 2021 in the category “Mobility” goes to the European Commission for the introduction of the “On-Board Fuel Consumption Meter” (OBFCM). The OBFCM collects an extensive amount of technical information about a vehicle and transmits it to the manufacturer along with the vehicle identification number. The OBFCM is mandatory for all new cars as of 1 Jan 2021.
Education: Proctorio GmbH
Proctorio GmbH receives the BigBrotherAwards 2021 for its offer of “fully automatic exam supervision”, which supposedly facilitates total control of students in online exams. During an exam, the AI-based software is said to be able to recognise eye movements of students that point to an attempt at cheating, which then raises an automatic alarm.
Rolf Gössner: Farewell to the BigBrotherAward
Rolf Gössner. who was a member of the BigBrotherAwards jury from the start, has retired from the jury earlier this year. He gave this speech at the gala to say farewell to the audience.
Public Intellectual: Prof. Dr. phil. Dr. h. c. Julian Nida-Rümelin
The BigBrotherAward 2021 in the category “Public Intellectual” is awarded to the philosopher and vice chairperson of the German Ethics Council, Julian Nida-Rümelin, for his untenable claim, repeatedly made in public, that “data protection” had hindered the fight to contain the Corona pandemic and was responsible for thousands of deaths.
What makes me really angry: Google
Google receives the BigBrotherAward 2021 for recently exposed large-scale manipulations of the Internet advertising market, for starving creators and media and for dispossessing our digital personalities.
Health: Doctolib
The BigBrotherAward in 2021 in the category Health goes to Doctolib GmbH, Berlin. In particular, Doctolib offers the scheduling of doctor’s appointments via its platform. These data are processed in violation of confidentiality obligations and are used commercially for marketing purposes according to their privacy agreement.
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.