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BigBrotherAwards 2008
Up one levelEurope/EU: The Council of the European Union (EU Ministers Council) in Brussels
The Big Brother Award 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 Ministers Council receives the Big Brother Award for the EU terror list.
Health and Social Services: DAK (a statutory health insurance)
The Big Brother Award 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. Herbert Rebscher, for the unauthorised sharing of 200.000 chronically ill patients’ data with a private company, without giving information to the insurance customers or asking for their consent.
Consumers I: Members of the 16th ‘Bundestag’ (the German parliament)
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 through a number of laws which enforce the collection, long-term storing and sharing of detailed data of travellers.
Workplace and Communications: Deutsche Telekom AG (German Telecom, plc)
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 journalists.
Technology: Yello Strom GmbH
The BigBrotherAward in the “Technology” category goes to Yello Strom GmbH (Ltd), represented by its CEO, Martin Vesper, for their pioneering role in introducing digital electricity technology for private customers. With this technology, electricity consumption can be registered with single-second accuracy for each household and even for individual devices, potentially leading to a detailed surveillance of activities in the home. [Full text not available yet — to follow soon.]
Politics: Ministry of Economy and Technology
The BigBrotherAward 2008 in the category “Politics” goes to the Ministry of Economy and Technology, represented by Minister Michael Glos, for passing the law about the ELENA procedure und the associated forced introduction of the electronic signature.
Consumers: Work Group of German Market and Social Research Institutes
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 Hartmut Scheffler, further representing the Work Group of the Association of Social Science Institutes (Arbeitsgemeinschaft Sozialwissenschaftliche Institute e.V.), the Professional Association of German Market and Social Researchers (Berufsverband Deutscher Markt- und Sozialforscher e.V.) and the German Association for Online Research (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Online-Forschung e.V.) — for their recommendation in a guideline to have consumer interviews by telephone monitored secretly, and to continue propagating this illegal guideline even after protests from the data protection authorities.
Audience Award 2008
This year we asked our audience again to select one of our “winners” that they found especially “impressive, surprising, shocking, or outrageous”.
Audience Award 2008