Winners | BigBrotherAwards

Lifetime Award (2023)

Microsoft

The Big Brother Award 2023 in the category "Lifetime Achievement" goes to Microsoft, because with their market dominance, the company forces people, companies and government agencies to continually transmit data, and therefore to…

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Dr. Thilo Weichert

Eine Zoomkonferenz in der ganz viele Zombies abhängen.

Communication (2023)

Zoom Video Communications, Inc.

The BigBrotherAward in the Communications category goes to Zoom Video Communications, Inc., which as a US-based company is obliged to share data with intelligence services, but still claims to be in compliance with the GDPR. Since…

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padeluun

Montage: Grafik zwei Palmen in einer realen Seenlandschaft.

Bild: Pixabay, Pixabay License

Lifetime Achievement (2022)

Irish Data Protection Commission

The BigBrotherAward 2022 in the category “Lifetime Achievement” goes to the Irish Data Protection Commission, represented by Helen Dixon, for its continued sabotage of efforts to enforce European data protection law. Under the…

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Rena Tangens

Image:Collage von Dennis BlomeyerAll rights reserved

Mobility (2021)

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…

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Frank Rosengart

Image:Kultusministerium Baden-Württemberg Source

Digitalisation (2020)

Minister of Education of Baden-Württemberg, Susanne Eisenmann

The education minister of the federal state of Baden-Württemberg, Susanne Eisenmann, receives the BigBrotherAward in the “Education” category because she intends to let Microsoft run essential services of the state’s digital…

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Leena Simon

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

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

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…

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Rena Tangens

Im Vordergrund das Wort „Smart Cities“ gefüllt mit Binärcode bzw. sehen die Buchstaben teilweise wie Kameras und Personen aus. Im Hintergrund die Skyline einer Großstadt.

Image:Dennis Blomeyer Public Domain

PR & Marketing (2018)

Idea of a “Smart City”

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…

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Rena Tangens

Image:Collage von Digitalcourage CC-BY-SA 4.0

Technology (2018)

Microsoft Germany

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…

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Frank Rosengart

Eine Uhr und Amazon Alexa auf einer gräulichen Oberfläche, darüber der Text: „Das Lauschangriffdöschen für zu Hause“.

Image:padeluun CC-BY-SA 4.0

Consumer Protection (2018)

Amazon Alexa

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…

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padeluun

Bild: Collage von Digitalcourage, Foto von Thomas Schlosser (CC-BY 2.0, Quelle)

Economy (2017)

IT business association Bitkom

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…

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Rena Tangens

Eine schwarze Datenkrake mit der Aufschrift "change.org". In den Tentakeln hält sie diverse Logos sozialer Medien (Facebook, Twitter, E-Mail). Im Hintergrund blauer Binärcode.

Image:Christiaan Colen (Hintergrundbild)CC-BY-SA 2.0 Source

Economy (2016)

Change.org

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…

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Prof. Dr. Peter Wedde

Image:Dan Farber CC-BY-NC 2.0 Source

Workplace (2016)

IBM Germany

IBM Germany receives the BigBrotherAward 2016 in the “Workplace” Category for the software “Social Dashboard”, which allows companies to control and evaluate their employees' social behaviour. “Social Dashboard” uses metadata from…

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Frank Rosengart

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

Organised by (among others):

BigBrotherAwards International

The BigBrotherAwards are an international project: Questionable practices have been decorated with these awards in 19 countries so far.