Bulgarian Big Brother Awards

On 13 April 2005 EDRI-member Isoc Bulgaria organised its second Big
Brother Award Ceremony. This years winner in the category of most heinous
political institution was the Council of Ministers, for changing the Data
Protection Act. Data protection was used as an excuse to block access to
personal data of public figures, including politicians.

The individual Bulgarian who most excelled in violating privacy rights was
the Chief Prosecutor, for starting an investigation against the
journalists who created the BBC television report ‘To Win The Games’,
about alleged bribery for the 2012 Olympic Games city selection. Two
journalists posing as businessmen talked to the Bulgarian Member of the
International Olympic Committee (Ivan Slavkov) and offered him money if
he’d vote for London. The ‘prize’ also goes to the Appeal prosecution
office of the city of Plovdiv for requesting the social security numbers
of all cybercafe visitors in the city, and demanding detailed records
about the time they accessed the Internet.

Finally the television producers of the program ‘SIA Advertising’ were put
in the icecold spotlight for using the personal data of 15.000 people for
advertising, without prior warning or consent. These people had applied
for participation in the Big Brother show.

Press release ISOC Bulgaria (in Bulgarian, 14.05.2005)
http://bg.bigbrotherawards.org/ceremony2005.html