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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 .

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The 2007 Ceremony for the German Big Brother Awards called "Oscars for Data Leeches" took place on 12 October in Bielefeld when the jury had the difficult task of choosing from more than 500 nominations. The negative Big Brother Awards Germany, which have started in 2000, are organised by EDRI-member, FoeBuD Association.

For the category Workplace, the winner of this year award was Novartis Pharma GmbH company for having spied on its employees. Although the company has joined the "FairCompany Initiative", has committed itself to the "Voluntary Self-control For The Pharmaceutical Industry" code of conduct and boasts on its respect for fair work conditions and human rights, at the same

The Dutch Big Brother Award 2007 in the Individual category has been awarded to the Dutch citizen. He is the biggest threat to privacy according to the jury. Due to indifference - "I have nothing to hide" - and lack of interest in what happens to their personal data, citizens share responsibility for the disappearance of privacy in The Netherlands. While Time magazine praised 'You' as person of the year, the jury gives 'You' an award for your acceptance of far reaching intrusions upon your privacy.

In the Corporate category the Dutch railroad service (NS) were the winner. It has a dominant role in the implementation of a privacy intruding smart card for public transportation. The system will collect, keep and use personally identifiable data on all travel. The NS, the national rail monopoly, penalise those who wish to travel anonymously.

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On 19 May 2007, the two-day e-Privacy Conference in Florence hosted the Big Brother Awards Italy. The candidates for the awards were selected by a jury made of seven members.

The people's choice price "The People's lament" was won by far by Telecom Italia especially for the Tavaroli & Co case when a vast system of illegal eavesdropping of telephone conversations was discovered under the company's umbrella. The company's financial maneuvers and court actions have also contributed to its victory.

The Municipality of Milan won the award "The Worst Public Agency" for having installed several cameras in the city starting with public parks without giving any information on who would use the recorded data and for having

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The official start of the call for nominations for the Italian Big Brother Award (BBA) 2007 began on 2 April 2007 and will last until 30 April.

In a scenario where privacy is all the time attacked by new technologies and doubtful initiatives to protect our "security", the BBA is meant to highlight the worst offenders of privacy, who often can take advantage of the very minor attention by official media.

In the best tradition of the Internet, the BBA is also meant as a way to have fun. Privacy is a serious thing, but having a laugh helps protecting it better.

For this reason, during the award ceremony - which will take place in Florence (Italy) at the end of May during the E-Privacy 2007 conference,

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The French Big Brother Awards event that took place on 20 January 2007 has brought the exclusion from this competition of Mr. Sarkozy, for having already won three of the Orwell prizes during the last three years and thus by far outclassing his competitors.

This year, the jury decided to eliminate Minister Sarkozy, the only personality having been nominated 6 times in 7 editions of the event, for multiple attacks to private life and for having actively promoted surveillance in general.

The organizers of the event, in creating the diplomas for the awards were inspired by a real picture of a fossil found in Niger in 2000, of the biggest crocodile that lived 110 million years ago, called by US

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On 16 November 2006, Sudhaus cultural centre of Bâle hosted the Swiss Big Brother Awards ceremony of 2006 organised by Archives de l'Etat Fouineur Swiss and the EDRI-member Swiss Internet User Group SIUG.

The jury deciding on the winners included 11 people from various institutions and organizations having acted against control and surveillance. The winners received concrete trophies, a certificate and were mentioned on the "Hall of Shame" list.

The trophy for the category "State" was awarded to the Federal Council of Corpore represented by Christoph Blocher, the head of the Federal Department of Justice and Police for the application of internal security measures involving phone tapping, secret search of information systems and

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On 30 October 2006 in Prague the Big Brother Awards for the most egregious data privacy transgressions in the Czech Republic were bestowed for the second time. The event organised by the NGO Iuridicum Remedium was quite a big success reported by many national media. The chief of the Czech data protection office as well as other officials and foreign guests - Meryem Marzouki from EDRi, padeluun from German FoeBud, Alexander Kashamov, of AIP organising BBA event in Bulgaria together with dozens of people enjoyed the evening show.

Thus, for retaining indefinitely the data of its former customers and even of people who have merely made an inquiry with the institution, the "Komercní banka" (which freely translates as "Commercial Bank") will