Winners

The BigBrotherAward 2012 in the “Communication” category goes to “the Cloud” as a trend that deprives users of control over their own data. To move address books and photos – in other words, other people’s data – or archives…

The BigBrotherAward in the category “Economy” goes to Mr Markus Hankammer, CEO of Brita GmbH, for the firm’s water vending machines, marketed under the name “Schoolwater”. These machines deliver water only when a school child taps…

The BigBrotherAward 2012 in the “Workplace” category goes to Bofrost (a German-based manufacturer and home delivery service for frozen foods), for unlawfully prying into data on a computer belonging to the staff council. Bofrost…

The BigBrotherAward in the category “Technology” goes to Gamma Group, represented in Germany by Gamma International in Munich, personally by its general manager Stephan Oelkers, for their software “FinFisher”. Gamma advertises the…

The BigBrotherAward 2012 in the “Consumer Protection” category goes to Blizzard Entertainment, for various violations of privacy in their online games, such as World of Warcraft. Using recorded data such as time spent playing…

The BigBrotherAward 2012 in the “Politics” category goes to the Federal Minister of the Interior, Dr. Hans-Peter Friedrich (CSU, the Christian democrats of Bavaria) for establishing a cyber defence centre without authorisation…

The BigBrotherAwards 2012 in the category “Government and Administration” goes to the Saxon Minister of the Interior, Mr. Markus Ulbig, for mobile phone cell queries in the region of Dresden. After about 20,000 people demonstrated…

The BigBrotherAward 2011 in the category Technology goes to the fashion brand Peuterey, represented by the Düsseldorf fashion agency Torsten Müller. This negative prize is awarded to Peuterey for covertly deploying RFID tags in…

The BigBrotherAward 2011 in the category Government and Administration goes to the chairman of the Census Commission, Prof. Dr. Gert G. Wagner for the all-encompassing population survey in Germany called “Zensus 2011”. He is…

The BigBrotherAward 2011 in the “Workplace” category goes to the German Federal Customs Administration. They allow themselves to be exploited by the Russian state as they require German companies to cross-check their employees…

The BigBrotherAward 2011 in the “Politics” Category goes to The Interior Minister of the federal state of Lower Saxony, Uwe Schünemann (CDU, Germany’s conservative party), for the first proven instance of German police using a…

Another BigBrotherAward 2011 in the category “Communication“ goes to Apple GmbH in Munich for taking their customers hostage by way of expensive hardware and subsequently blackmailing them into accepting a questionable privacy…