Winners

Audience Award (2014)

German Chancellery is caught up

In 2014 we continued our tradition of asking our audience which of the awards they regarded as particularly “impressive, surprising, shocking, or outrageous”.

Image:Susanne HolzgräfeCC-BY 3.0

Audience Award (2015)

A Tight Race

We asked our audience again in 2015 which of our “winners” they found especially “impressive, surprising, shocking, or outrageous”.

Ein Motherboard. Darauf kleine Figürchen der Spurensicherung in Schutzanzügen.

Image:Hans-Peter CC-BY 2.0 Source

Newspeak (2015)

As an example for incessant attempts to foist telecommunications data retention on the public, the term “securing digital evidence” (“digitale Spurensicherung”) is given the Newspeak award. It is just one of many neologisms…

Laudator.in

Kai Biermann

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

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)

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…

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Max Schrems

Detailaufnahme einer Gesundheitskarte, die zum Teil aus einer Geldbörse guckt.

Image:Tim Reckmann CC-BY-NC-SA 2.0 Source

Consumer Protection (2015)

Federal Ministry of Health

The Federal Ministry of Health, represented by the current minister of Health, Hermann Gröhe, receives the BigBrotherAward 2015 in the “Consumer Protection” category. With its “e‑health” projects, the ministry has severely…

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padeluun

Ein Amazon-Logistikzentrum aus der Ferne. Vor dem Gebäude stehen mehrere LKWs.

Image:Dominik MüllerCC-BY 3.0

Workplace (2015)

Amazon Logistik

The Amazon subsidiaries in Bad Hersfeld and Koblenz receive the BigBrotherAward 2015 in the “Workplace” category for conditions in their employment contracts that violate employees’ personal rights. The companies demand that…

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Prof. Dr. Peter Wedde

Ein Amazon-Logistikzentrum aus der Ferne.

Image:Dominik MüllerCC-BY-SA 3.0

Business (2015)

Amazon Mechanical Turk and Elance-oDesk

The crowd-working platforms Amazon Mechanical Turk and Elance-oDesk receive the BigBrotherAward 2015 in the Economy category for realising digital day-labourship. A trend which will not only turn our working environment inside-out…

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Rena Tangens

Image:Robert Agthe CC-BY 2.0

Authorities & Administration (2015)

Federal Intelligence Agency (Bundesnachrichtendienst, BND)

The BigBrotherAward 2015 in the category Administration is awarded to the Federal Intelligence Agency (Bundesnachrichtendienst, BND), because of its intimate entanglement with the NSA’s surveillance network, which is contrary to…

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Dr. Rolf Gössner

Eine Barbie mit blonden Haaren. Rechts daneben ein Warnschild: „Warning! Audio surveillance. Barbie in operation.“

Image:Mike Licht CC-BY 2.0 Source

Technology (2015)

“Hello Barbie”

“Hello Barbie”, represented by the involved manufacturers Mattel and Toytalk, receives the BigBrotherAward in the Technology category. This doll is equipped with a microphone and Wi-Fi. It uses this to record conversations, sends…

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Linus Neumann

Ein erhobener Zeigefinger in schwarz-weiß.

Image:jazzlog CC-BY-NC-ND 2.0

Reprimands & Commendation (2008)

Trends, Notes of Disapproval, In Retrospect

Trends Companies allow themselves generous conditions for sharing data Alvar Freude Many companies trading on the internet are including vague or very wide-ranging statements in the privacy sections of their terms and conditions…

Image:jazzlog CC-BY-NC-ND 2.0

Reprimands & Commendation (2014)

Reprimands

Translations for the reprimands are not yet available, sorry.

Graffiti in schwarz-weiß von Edward Snowdens Augen. Er trägt eine kantige Brille.

Image:thierry ehrmann CC-BY 2.0 Source

Positive Award (2014)

Edward Snowden

For the first time, we introduce a positive award this year. The “Julia and Winston Award” was named after the “rebellious” main characters in George Orwell’s dystopian novel “1984”, from which the “Big Brother”concept is also…

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Heribert Prantl

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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