On 4 February 2004 the French Big Brother Awards were presented in a movie theatre in Paris. In the category 'Government' a double award was given to the Ministers of Justice and Internal Affairs, Dominique Perben and Nicolas Sarkozy, for their joined efforts in changing the law on organised crime. The new adaptation (Perben II) introduces a form of plea-bargaining to the French legal system. The law also stretches the interception and remote monitoring powers of law enforcement agencies, allowing them to secretly place microphones and camera's in cars and private homes. According to the jury, the new powers are not limited to the investigation of networks of organised crime, but can also be used on small delinquents and groups like 'young people in cities', 'immigrants' and 'travellers'.

For the fourth consecutive year, French civil liberty activists will present the French Big Brother Awards during an Orwell Party in Paris on Wednesday 4 February 2004. Since Privacy International presented the first Big Brother Awards in 1998 to government agencies, private companies and individuals who have excelled in the violation of privacy, an international tradition has begun. In 2003, the awards were presented in 14 different countries.

Besides the usual 4 categories of products, institutions, governments and companies and the special prize for persons (for a lifetime achievement), the French have added a special Orwell Europe prize to the contest list. The public is invited to nominate candidates that have excelled in violating privacy and generally increasing surveillance. The deadline for nominations is Friday 16 January. In order for the jury to evaluate the facts, nominations must contain solid facts and sources. The jury will publish both the complete list and the selected nominations on 24 January.

On 6 November the Hungarian Big Brother Awards were presented to the police office of Budapest, to the small company Szabo Gardentechnics and to the under-secretary of the ministry of internal affairs. With the Big Brother Awards governments, companies and people are named and shamed for large scale privacy invasions.

The Budapest police earned the detested award by examining the identity papers of drug addicts that applied for free disposable needles. The Hungarian Data Protection Commissioner explained that the police didn't have a general right to go into the trailer of the Baptists (where the needles were distributed). They could only enter in hot pursuit of a criminal or to prevent someone from committing a crime.

Privacy and civil liberty activists across Europe have presented their Big Brother Awards to governments, companies and persons that have excelled in violating the right to privacy. In a weeks period Award ceremonies were held in Germany (24 October), Spain (25 October), Austria (26 October) and Switzerland (1 November).

In Germany prices went to German Post-Shop, part of the Post Office, for pressing their workers to agree that there is no confidentiality between the worker and their doctor when they report sick from work.

The Dutch Big Brother Awards were presented in front of a 300 person audience in Amsterdam on the 11th of October. With the Awards the person, company, governmental institution and initiative are rewarded for damaging the privacy of citizens in 2003 the most. The 4 winners of 2003 are: minister of Justice Piet Hein Donner; several major lawyer firms; the Immigration and Naturalisation Service and the legal proposal to introduce compulsory identification.

According to the jury minister Donner seems to have a personal mission in the destruction of the right to privacy. The minister was awarded for a long list of proposals and determined efforts to shift the balance between privacy and safety.

On 4 June EDRI-member EFFI organised a second annual Big Brother Ceremony. The award in the public sector was given to YTV, a firm that controls public transport in the Helsinki region. The company received the award for its new electronical ticket system that stores individual passenger information, including social security numbers. Anonymous cards were available, but in practice only for business purposes, at a much higher price. Only after a long struggle with the the Finnish data protection agency YTV finally changed their mind and concluded that the system could also work without any identification of the passengers.

For the Big Brother Award in the business category there was really only one candidate.

Critical shareholders of the German medicine-company Bayer AG have presented the Big Brother Award to the board during the annual shareholders meeting in Cologne on 25 April 2003. The Award was given to the company in October 2002 for demanding a drug test from every employee applying for in-company training. Bayer did not bother to come to the award ceremony, but members of FoeBuD, the organisers of the German Big Brother Award, happily welcomed the opportunity to come to the board.

According to the jury report, the practice of demanding a urine sample from every employee applying for in-company training is disproportional, the result prone to mistakes, degrading and a very heavy invasion of the privacy of all male and female employees.

The human rights group Privacy International (PI) has announced that it will this year host the first international Big Brother Awards. The Awards, which started in the UK in 1998, were established to 'name and shame' the most relentless government and private sector privacy invaders. They have now become an annual event in fifteen countries. More than thirty national BBA ceremonies have taken place over the past five years.

Privacy International will be staging the awards as an annual event in London on 25 June, on the hundredth birthday of George Orwell, whose novel Nineteen Eighty-Four inspired the name of the award.