Czech Big Brother Awards 2025: Volkswagen, Meta and the Czech authorities noted as Snoopers of the Year

Electric cars are a novelty, Meta is a tradition

At the annual Big Brother awards, organised by Iuridicum Remedium (IuRE), the Snoopers of the Year 2025 were Volkswagen, Meta, and the Czech Ministries of the Interior and Industry and Trade. The Danish Minister of Justice, Peter Hummelgaard, was recognised for his astonishing words undermining the right to encrypted communication. The Positive Award, which recognises efforts to oppose mass surveillance, went to students at Masaryk University for resisting the coercion to the International Student Identity Card (ISIC) app.

The winners were selected by a panel of experts from around 60 nominations submitted by the public throughout 2025. The awards were presented on March 14 at the Bike Jesus club in Prague. The ceremony was accompanied by three assemblies and an artistic performance.

The Volkswagen Group can count itself among the recipients of the ‘Corporate Snoop’ award as the company processed sensitive data on users and the movements of electric vehicles from the VW, Audi, Seat, and Škoda brands through its subsidiary Cariad. This data was freely accessible on an Amazon server. EDRi members and ethical hackers from the German nonprofit Chaos Computer Club were the first to draw attention to this breach.

According to the jury of the Czech Big Brother Awards, the data was subsequently secured quickly, and the company did not dispute the risks. Nevertheless, the case highlights the sensitivity of personal data collection and the risks to which users of modern cars are exposed. The leaked Volkswagen data included, for example, information on the movements of Hamburg police vehicles and data from the parking lot of a large Berlin brothel.

In the Long-Term Snoop category, Meta took home the prize after a long hiatus. It earned the award for its longstanding deception of the public, specifically for its Meta Pixel tool in 2025. This tool is embedded on about one-fifth of the most-visited websites and helps Meta collect data on visitors and subsequently target ads.

According to the jury, Meta found a way to spy on people even when they use ad-blockers or VPNs. Specifically, it found a way to establish communication on Android phones between its installed apps and a tracking pixel code, thus linking the often intentionally anonymised behavior of specific website users to the identities they used to log in to the Facebook or Instagram mobile apps.

Attacks on anonymity and encrypted communication

Like Meta, the collection of operational and location data is nothing new to the jury of the awards. So-called data retention has already won several times. This time, it took the prize in the ‘Official Snoop’ category: specifically, the award went to a Czech government proposal to further increase the already vast amount of data about every internet and mobile phone user that is currently being collected and stored illegally on a mass scale.

In March 2025, the Ministry of Industry and Trade, in cooperation with the Ministry of the Interior, submitted a draft amendment to a decree that would have expanded the scope of operational and location data collected across the board about internet communications. The new provisions were also intended to cover data on the endpoints of communications, for example, information about visited websites. Fortunately, the proposal was uncovered in time thanks to the work of journalists, condemned by the public, and subsequently rejected by politicians.

The expansion of the types of data that can be collected is also linked to the award given to Danish Minister Peter Hummelgaard, who won the ‘Big Brother Statement’ for his words: “We must dispel the completely mistaken impression that the use of encrypted communication apps is a civil right.” The jury selected from a wide range of statements related to ChatControl, ultimately deeming the Danish minister’s statement as the most scandalous.

Students against forced digitization

The only Positive Award of the evening went to students at Masaryk University in Brno. At the turn of 2024 and 2025, they opposed a plan by GTS Alive, the company that operates the entire ISIC system, to require that card renewals, previously done using validation stickers, be conducted exclusively through a mobile app.

According to the students, it was necessary to preserve non-digital alternatives. They also cited privacy concerns as part of their argument.

People can share their views on the impact of technology on society throughout 2026

This year’s Czech Big Brother Awards were held in both Czech and English for the first time, as the Big Brother Awards are part of the international Democratic Digital Commons project. Through this project, people can voice their opinions on the impact of digital technologies on their lives via on-line and offline assemblies throughout 2026. People can register for assemblies via the Democratic Digital Commons website. There will be meetings in Cluj, Budapest, Athens and Lisbon.

Contribution by: Hynek Trojánek, PR, EDRi member, Iuridicum Remedium (IuRE)