(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar)
The Big Brother Awards ceremonies in Austria and Switzerland took place in the past weeks in Viena, on the 25 October 2007 and in St Gall, on the 9 November 2007, respectively.
The Swiss ceremony of the 8th edition of Big Brother Awards was organised by the associations "droitsfondamentaux.ch" and EDRI-member Swiss Internet UserGroup (SIUG).
The award for the State and for the entire work was received by the Federal Councillor Christoph Blocher. In the Business category the insurance company HELSANA of Zurich was the winner and CFF and OFT were awarded in the Work place category.
The Austrian Big Brother Awards was organised in 2007 by Linux User Group Austria and EDRI-members quintessenz and VIBE!AT .
For the Business and Finances category the award was received by Heinrich Frey from the Cab guild for the video surveillance in cabs. The surveillance of the Austrian cab drivers was escalated from radio data transmission records of the personal data of each individual driver to GPS monitoring of the vehicles and personal physical check by an infrared seat contact system, crowned by the installation of "inconspicuous, easily and discretely to install" video systems on cabs introduced by RTS and the cab guild of the chamber of economics. The cab guild stated the data recorded were deleted after 48 hours, but did not give any guarantees for that.
The Policy category award was initially won by Claudia Schmied the Minister of Education, Arts and Culture for the still unsolved issues related to the "education evidence" bill, a draft law for the collection of data on pupils, including data on expels from school, social anomalies, attendance of religious classes, remedial needs. The database is linked with the social assurance number and is to be stored for 6 years. The latest draft law does not include sufficient legal protection for pupils and is intended for a large and vague term of "administrative purposes". Only a non-committing right to complaint to the data protection commission is provided by the draft instead of the information and rectification right as stipulated by the data protection law. The award was not given as and is kept "in evidence" for the time being, as a result of a recent amendment to the bill proposed by the Minister that brings some improvements to the draft.
Peter van der Arend, of the royal Dutch Telecom KPN has received the award for the Authorities and Administration category for data mining standards for Telecom traffic data. He is the chairman of the Telecom "Lawful Interception" (TC LI) committee in the European Telecom Standards Institute which is in charge of the creation of a uniform system to monitor all fixed line and mobile telephony networks. TC LI changes the requirements of the police and judiciary into technical standards that will be compulsory for all telecom equipment. As such, all telephony networks with carry inborn surveillance from the start. "Lawful Interception" includes a set of rules that goes against the present European laws, being therefore actually illegal.
In Communication and Marketing section, the award was received by Anthony E. Zuiker, author of the C.S.I series which present DNA Analysis, criminal search and the "Aushebelung" (by-passing) of civil rights in a biased way, presenting citizens' rights as hindering to an investigation and showing in a positive light the way in which the investigators "smartly" by-pass civil rights. The series are most dangerous as they were taken as examples by other similar type of series, which try to manipulate the public opinion.
Hans Dichand, editor-in-chief of the "Kurier" (Courier Newspaper) in Vienna and the power behind the "Kronenzeitung" (Crown Newspaper), which is the most widely circulated daily newspaper in Austria, received the award for a Life's work, as the manipulator of the republic by means of the media he leads that support the strategic goals of their owner. People that are not to the liking of the publisher are exposed in the Kurier with full address and phone number.
The positive award Defensor Libertatis was won by Karl Korinek, President of the Constitutional Court for having kept warning about the danger of the fight against terrorism leading to a total surveillance state. He advised on the risk that security may displace the fundamental rights such as the privacy of correspondence, the secrecy of telecommunications and the data security.
Big Brother Awards 2007 Switzerland (only in French, 9.11.2007)
http://www.bigbrotherawards.ch/2007/presse/pressemitteilungen/bba.pres...
Big Brother Awards 2007 Switzerland - Winners (only in German, 9.11.2007)
http://www.bigbrotherawards.ch/2007
Austrian Big Brother Awards 2007 - Winners
http://www.bigbrotherawards.at/2007/English