Dutch Big Brother Award for Minister of Justice

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. The minister is in particular responsible for the law
proposal for compulsory identification for all persons starting at 14
years.

The second Big Brother Award is awarded to several Dutch lawyer firms for
using the services of investigation office Mariendijk. Under false
pretence the office managed to extract very privacy-sensitive information
from banks and social security offices.

The Immigration and Naturalisation Service (IND) deserves the Award with
the storage of all e-mails of all employees for an undetermined period of
time.

Finally the jury crowned the legal proposal for compulsory identification
with an Orwellian Award. This proposal requires all persons to permanently
wear ID from the age of 14. People unable to immediately show a valid
passport, drivers license or identity card risk a fine of 2250 euro.

Since Privacy International presented the first Big Brother Awards in
1998, an international tradition has begun. By now, more than 40
ceremonies have taken place in 15 different countries. In the next two
weeks several Award ceremonies are scheduled in Germany, Spain, Austria,
Switzerland and Hungary (see agenda below).

Dutch Big Brother Awards
http://www.bigbrotherawards.nl/index_uk.html

Big Brother Awards International
http://www.bigbrotherawards.org/