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Welcome to the German BigBrotherAwards

The BigBrotherAwards Germany were launched to encourage public debate about privacy and data protection. It is their purpose to highlight abusive uses of technology and information. Nominate now for the BigBrotherAwards 2015 We are accepting nominations for the BigBrotherAwards 2015 until Sunday, 18 January 2015. We are curious about and looking forward to your suggestions. Our (German only) nomination page awaits you. The German BigBrotherAwards gala took place on 11 April 2014 in Bielefeld, Germany. Full English texts of the award speeches can be found here. This year’s jury was made up with…

Portraitaufnahmen von Hans-Peter Friedrich (links) und Thomas de Maizière (rechts).

Politics (2015)

Thomas de Maizière and Hans-Peter Friedrich

Federal Minister of the Interior, Thomas de Maizière, and former Federal Minister of the Interior, Hans-Peter Friedrich receive the BigBrotherAward in the Politics category for systematically and fundamentally sabotaging EU plans for a General Data Protection Regulation. Instead of taking Germany’s high level of protections into the EU negotiations, as they vowed to do, both Interior Ministers oversaw their ministry’s civil servants perverting European data protection into the opposite, and to do so in close cooperation with lobbyists. Past achievements such as data minimisation, informed consent, and limiting data use to specific purposes, are set to be practically abolished.

Bild: Komposition Sebastian Lisken (CC-BY-SA 3.0), Dan Taylor (links – CC-BY 2.0, Quelle), Metropolico.org (rechts – CC-BY-SA 2.0, Quelle)

Hauptgebäude der Firma Claas mit einem Traktor davor.

Workplace (2009)

Claas GmbH

The BigBrotherAward 2009 in the “Workplace” category goes to all those consumed by the delusion that you will get productive and motivated staff if you subject them to comprehensive monitoring and make their performance measurable by numbers. As a representative and winner on points, farm machines manufacturer Claas Landmaschinen (internationally known as Claas Group) receives the award for the bugged harvesting machines.

Image:Daniel Brockpfähler CC-BY-SA 3.0

Ein Yachthafen bei Nacht. Im Hintergrund hell erleuchtete Wolkenkratzer.

Consumer Protection (2022)

Klarna

The BigBrotherAward in the consumer protection category goes to the Swedish company Klarna Bank AB. Klarna intransparently bundles data and power as a shopping service, payment service provider, price comparison portal, personal finance manager, solvency checker and bank.

Bild: Pixabay, Pixabay License

Ein Gehirn mit einem Stirnband aus Plastik. Davor die Logos von BrainCo und des Leibniz Wissenschaftscampus.

Education (2020)

BrainCo company and Leibniz Science Campus Tübingen

The company BrainCo receives the BBA in the “Education” category for its EEG headbands, which can allegedly measure students’ attention by their brain activity. The attention level is signalled by an LED on the headband and radioed to the teacher’s computer. In the US and China this technology is already used in classrooms. The second awardee is the Leibniz Science Campus Tübingen, which is trialling similar headbands in Germany, combined with eye tracking. That is dressage rather than education.

Image:Collage von Dennis Blomeyer, Gehirn: _DJ_CC-BY-SA 2.0 Source

Rena Tangens am Redner.innenpult. Links daneben die Datenkrake.

Success Story

Since the year 2000, Digitalcourage organises the German BigBrotherAwards

Image:Bernd SiekerCC-BY 3.0

About BigBrotherAwards

In a compelling, entertaining and accessible format, we present these negative awards to companies, organisations, and politicians. The BigBrotherAwards highlight privacy and data protection offenders in business and politics, or as the French paper Le Monde once put it, they are the “Oscars for data leeches”.

Credits

More about us

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