Winners

The BigBrotherAward 2008 in the “Health and Social Services” category goes to Deutsche Angestellten-Krankenkasse (“German Employees’ Health Insurance”, DAK, a statutory health insurer), represented by their CEO, Prof. Dr. h.c…

The BigBrotherAward 2008 in the “Consumers” category goes to the Work Group of German Market and Social Research Institutes (Arbeitskreis Deutscher Markt- und Sozialforschungsinstitute e.V., ADM), represented by its chairman Mr…

The BigBrotherAward 2008 in the “Europe/EU” category goes to The Council of the European Union (EU Ministers Council) in Brussels, represented by the Council’s President, Bernard Kouchner / Secretary General, Javier Solana. The EU…

The BigBrotherAward in the “Workplace and Communications” category goes to Deutsche Telekom AG (German Telecom, plc) for their illegal use of telecommunication connections data to snoop on Telekom supervisory board members and…

The BigBrotherAward 2008 in the category “Consumers” goes to the members of the 16th German Bundestag (the Lower House in Germany’s Federal Parliament), represented by Dr. Norbert Lammert, President of the Bundestag, for waving…

Canon Germany - An ID number storied in photocopying machines is invisibly printed on *all* copies. As each copier has an individual number, the source of a copy can be traced. This is sold as a feature to protect against…

With more than 500 nominations, the BigBrotherAwards jury has had to manage a record workload this year – a kind of data mining for data protection and civic rights. It is therefore all the more important to point out that “below”…

Not a winner in 2007: the Federal Minister of the Interior, Wolfgang Schäuble.

The BigBrotherAward 2007 in the “Consumer Protection” category goes to the international hotel chains in Germany, Marriott, Hyatt and Intercontinental (representing many others), for their collection and centralised storing of…

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…

The Novartis Pharma GmbH receives the BigBrotherAward in the “Workplace” category for spying on sales personnel by detectives and deliberately breaching promises of anonymity in employee surveys.

The BigBrotherAward in the “Regional” category goes to the Municipal Authority for Education and Sports of the City of Hamburg, represented by Ms Alexandra Dinges-Dierig, Senator for Education and Sports, for introducing a central…