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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 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 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 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 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.

The BigBrotherAward in the “Politics” category goes to the Federal Minister of Finance, Mr Peer Steinbrück, for introducing a life-long Tax ID number for all taxable persons, which bears an eerie resemblance to the unconstitutional concept of a personal code number.

Mr Otto Schily, former Federal Minister of the Interior of Germany earns a BigBrotherAward for the current undemocratic introduction of the biometric passport, the technology of which is still immature and unsafe and which causes the whole population to be subjected to a police identification procedure normally applied to criminals. Mr Schily will receive the BigBrotherAward also for his Lifetime Achievement, namely for the extension of the German and European surveillance system, to the severe cost of civic and freedom rights, and for his persistent efforts at eroding data protection under the guises of public security and fight against terror.