The Big Brother Awards honor individuals, companies and government institutions that “have severely violated privacy.” It was started in the UK in 1998 by Privacy International, and it was taken up by the Dutch digital civil rights movement Bits of Freedom who organized the first Big Brother Awards in The Netherlands in 2002.
This year there were nine contenders for the three Big Brother prizes in front of a jury comprising Dutch publisher Karin Spaink (chairperson), journalist and TV-presenter Antoinette Hertsenberg, Media and Telecommunications Law Professor Nico van Eijk, Glenn de Randamie (better known as the rapper Typhoon), and Edo Roos Lindgreen (professor of IT & Auditing at University of Amsterdam and a partner at KPMG) – and the audience.
Dutch minister Edith Schippers was awarded the People prize. A member of the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), she is Minister of Health, Welfare and Sport. She privatized the digitization of personal medical data despite a bill with the same intention being rejected by the Dutch Senate over privacy concerns.
Facebook won the Company award. Given Facebook’s track record on privacy, its planned IPO is considered to be based less on the company and more on the personal data of its users – and the potential for third parties to make money from that data.
The Government prize was awarded to the national police (the KLPD) for its own use of spyware and for hacking hack victims. Last October the Minister of Safety and Justice gave a written reply to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, “The Unit National Interception of the National Police (National Police Agency) features software that can be installed on the computer of a suspect and that the purpose of investigation services can be accessed obtained and to the computer or data thereof can be taken over.” (Google translation)
The audience prize was overwhelmingly awarded to Fred Teeven, State Secretary for Security and Justice, “because of his unwavering commitment to weakening privacy legislation.”