For the first time, our audience was given the opportunity to answer the traditional question which awardee they had found particularly “impressive, surprising, shocking, or outrageous” online as well as in the hall. Here is the result.

The Hessian Minister of the Interior, Peter Beuth, receives the BigBrotherAward 2019 in the “Authorities & Administration” Category for the acquisition and use of an analysis software by Palantir, a company close to the CIA that has consequently gained access to the highly sensitive data networks of Hessian Police. With this software, mass data from police and external sources can automatically be interrelated, analysed and evaluated.

The company Ancestry.com receives the BigBrotherAward 2019 in the Biotechnology Category for enticing people with an interest in genealogy into submitting saliva samples. Ancestry.com sells genetic data to commercial pharmaceutical researchers, creates a data source prerequisite for genetic screening by the police and enables covert paternity tests, potentially causing familiy drama.

The company Precire of Aachen, Germany receives the BigBrotherAward 2019 in the “Communications” Category for the speech analysis software. Precire is not only used to preselect job candidates, but also by call centres to analyse callers’ emotions.

The ZEIT newspaper’s online presence receives the BigBrotherAward 2019 in the “Consumer Protection” Category. Firstly, for using advertising trackers and the Facebook Pixel. Second, for the use of Google services in the “Germany Talks” project. This leads to individuals’ political opinions being stored in US servers. Thirdly, for having the succesor project “My Country Talks“ financed by Google. This Faustian pact with one of the biggest data leeches damages journalistic independence.

Reprimands in 2019 go to mood tracker apps, Berlin’s Public Transport Company and the Edeka-Center supermarket in Porta Westfalica. A commendation is given to the physicians’ association Freie Ärzteschaft together with IT service provider Jens Ernst.

The “Technical Committee CYBER” of the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) receives the BigBrotherAward 2019 in the “Technology” Category for its efforts to establish a predetermined breaking point in the new technical standard for encryption on the Internet. The planned standard “ETS” (formerly “eTLS”) will enable government agencies to decrypt intercepted communications.

The BigBrotherAward 2018 in the “Administration” Category goes to Cevisio Software und Systeme GmbH & Co. KG in Torgau, Germany, for their software Cevisio Quartiermanagement (QMM), which is used in refugee shelters. This software can be used to register and store movements to the shelter, movements within the shelter, the handing out of meals, medical checks such as X-rays, blood and stool tests, family relationships, religious affiliation and ethnicity and many other details. The collected data facilitate a total control of the refugees.

In our new venue we continued the tradition of asking our audience which award they had found particularly “impressive, surprising, shocking, or outrageous”.

Amazon receives the BigBrotherAward 2018 in the “Consumer Protection” category for its nosy, impertinent, all-too clever and gossipy bugging operation in a can by the name of Alexa. It is well known that Alexa’s speech recordings are processed in the Cloud. What is award-worthy is the fact that these recordings are also stored in the Cloud and that they can be played back even months later. That makes it possible to monitor everyone present in the home, and it is unclear who else is given access to the recordings.

The parliamentary groups for the Christian-Democratic and the Green parties in the state parliament of Hesse receive the BigBrotherAward 2018 in the Politics category for their plans for a new domestic intelligence law. The draft by the “black-green coalition” contains an accumulation of grave surveillance powers that facilitate severe interferences with fundamental rights: So-called state trojans are to be used to secretly infect and investigate “suspect” computers, employees of projects to further democratic society are to be screened by intelligence agencies and, in a legal novelty, criminal undercover agents are to be exempted from persecution. All in all, this is a severe attack on democracy, on the rule of law, and on fundamental rights.

The BigBrotherAward 2018 in the “PR and Marketing” Category goes to the idea of a “Smart City”. The advertising concept of a “Smart City” is used by tech companies to try to sell the idea of a “safe city” to municipal administrations: A city, covered in sensors, under total surveillance, remote-controlled and commercialised. “Smart Cities” reduce their citizens to mere consumers, change consumers into data sources and our democracy into a privatised service.

Microsoft Germany, represented by Sabine Bendiek, Chairwoman of the Management Board, receives the BigBrotherAward 2018 in the Technology category for implanting telemetry (i.e. the transmission of diagnostic data) in Windows 10 that is almost impossible to deactivate. Even skilled users will hardly be able to stop this data from being transmitted.

The company “Soma Analytics” receives the BigBrotherAward 2018 in the “Workplace” category for their efforts to propagate their health app “Kelaa” and the “Kelaa Dashboard” among the human resources departments of companies. The app monitors several parameters (such as excitement in the voice during phone calls) to spy on the users’ vital functions, in order to give employers indications of their employees’ mental state.

In 2017 we continued the cherished tradition of asking our audience at the end of the gala which award they found particularly “impressive, astonishing, shocking, revolting, …”. As last year we had a clear winner, although this time with a less than absolute majority (which it had received in 2016).

The German Federal Military (“Bundeswehr”) and the Federal Minister of Defence receive the 2017 Big Brother Award in the category Authorities and Administration for the military’s massive digital arms build-up including the new “Commando Cyberspace and Information Space” (“Kommando Cyber- und Informationsraum”, KdoCIR). This digital combat unit with a planned strength of 14,000 personnel is to prepare the German military for cyber warfare – including military cyber attacks on other countries’ IT systems and critical infrastructure. This militarisation of the Internet means the Federal Republic will take part in the global cyber arms race – without parliamentary control, without democratic oversight and without legal basis.

The company Prudsys receive the BigBrotherAward 2017 in the “Consumer Protection” category because they offer software that facilitates price discrimination. This software sets a price according to what it can find out about the individual customer, not according to a product’s value. As a consequence, two different people may have to pay a different price for the same product.

The German IT business association Bitkom receives the BigBrotherAward 2017 in the “Business” category for their uncritical promotion of big data, for obtrusively lobbying against data protection, and for being a front organisation for big US companies, who call the shots within Bitkom.

The Technical University of Munich (TUM) and Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (LMU Munich) receive the BigBrotherAward 2017 in the “Education” category for cooperating with the online learning provider Coursera. Data about students’ learning results constitutes a treasure trove which Coursera as a company reserves the right to exploit commercially.

The Turkish-Islamic Union for Religious Affairs (DİTİB) receives the BigBrotherAward 2017 in the “Politics” category because imams at DİTİB – acting for the Turkish government and its secret service MİT – are said to have conducted political espionage on DİTİB members and visitors, exposing them to persecution by the Turkish state.

Again this year we have had more nominations than we could recognise with an award. Some of those nominated deserve to be reprimanded at least.

The company PLT – Planung für Logistik & Transport GmbH (Planning for Logistics and Transport) receives the BigBrotherAward in the Workplace category for its PLT Staff Tracker. This device provides employers with real-time information on the whereabouts of their newspaper deliverers or postal carriers and how fast they are moving. Such comprehensive monitoring is degrading and pointless.

At the end of the BigBrotherAwards gala 2016, we gave our audience their say as usual. Our guests could et us know in a vote which of the awards they found especially “impressive, surprising, shocking, or outrageous”. The result was strikingly clear.

The Generali insurance company is awarded the BigBrotherAward 2016 in the category Consumer Protection because it promises advantages to the insured if they use an app to transfer their fitness data and shopping behaviour to the insurance company, which in turn tranfers the data to a credit-point system in South Africa. This will lead to loss of solidarity and runs counter to the basic principle of our social system.

US company and campaign platform change.org receives the BigBrotherAward 2016 in the Economy category for its business model of marketing personally identifiable information of signatories together with their political statements. Change.org appears to be a progressive and social project, but it really is a for-profit US corporation which shows many deficiencies with respect to data protection law. For example, it continues to store user data in the USA although the Court of Justice of the European Union has declared the “Safe Harbor” Framework invalid.

The former Federal Minister for Justice, Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger is our guest speaker at the 2016 BigBrotherAwards.

Jan Philipp Albrecht is the EU politician thanks to whom we now have a real chance for data protection in Europe. For this, he and his team deserve words of praise at the 2016 BigBrotherAwards.

The interior secret service known as “Protection of the Constitution” receives a Lifetime BigBrotherAward just as it reaches the official retirement age, for 65 years of violating civil and privacy rights. The “Protection of the Constitution” is recognised in particular for monitoring and stigmatising groups and individuals that are critical of the state and society, for its uncontrollable system of informers, for hopeless entanglement with murderous neo-Nazi circles and for covering up illegal practices. Despite its history of scandals, the “Protection of the Constitution” offices are not being reigned in, but instead upgraded and equipped with further intelligence capabilities.

The BigBrotherAward 2016 in the Newspeak category goes to the word “Datenreichtum” (data opulence / data maximisation).

Again this year we received more nominations than the number of awards we can give. Some of these nominees deserve to be reprimanded at least.