Big Brother Awards 2007 – Austria and Switzerland

(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar)

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 .

For the Business and Finances category the award was received by Heinrich
Frey from the Cab guild for the video surveillance in cabs. The surveillance
of the Austrian cab drivers was escalated from radio data transmission
records of the personal data of each individual driver to GPS monitoring of
the vehicles and personal physical check by an infrared seat contact system,
crowned by the installation of “inconspicuous, easily and discretely to
install” video systems on cabs introduced by RTS and the cab guild of the
chamber of economics. The cab guild stated the data recorded were deleted
after 48 hours, but did not give any guarantees for that.

The Policy category award was initially won by Claudia Schmied the Minister
of Education, Arts and Culture for the still unsolved issues related to the
“education evidence” bill, a draft law for the collection of data on pupils,
including data on expels from school, social anomalies, attendance of
religious classes, remedial needs. The database is linked with the social
assurance number and is to be stored for 6 years. The latest draft law does
not include sufficient legal protection for pupils and is intended for a
large and vague term of “administrative purposes”. Only a non-committing
right to complaint to the data protection commission is provided by the
draft instead of the information and rectification right as stipulated by
the data protection law. The award was not given as and is kept “in
evidence” for the time being, as a result of a recent amendment to the bill
proposed by the Minister that brings some improvements to the draft.

Peter van der Arend, of the royal Dutch Telecom KPN has received the award
for the Authorities and Administration category for data mining standards
for Telecom traffic data. He is the chairman of the Telecom “Lawful
Interception” (TC LI) committee in the European Telecom Standards Institute
which is in charge of the creation of a uniform system to monitor all fixed
line and mobile telephony networks. TC LI changes the requirements of the
police and judiciary into technical standards that will be compulsory for
all telecom equipment. As such, all telephony networks with carry inborn
surveillance from the start. “Lawful Interception” includes a set of rules
that goes against the present European laws, being therefore actually
illegal.

In Communication and Marketing section, the award was received by Anthony E.
Zuiker, author of the C.S.I series which present DNA Analysis, criminal
search and the “Aushebelung” (by-passing) of civil rights in a biased way,
presenting citizens’ rights as hindering to an investigation and showing in
a positive light the way in which the investigators “smartly” by-pass civil
rights. The series are most dangerous as they were taken as examples by
other similar type of series, which try to manipulate the public opinion.

Hans Dichand, editor-in-chief of the “Kurier” (Courier Newspaper) in Vienna
and the power behind the “Kronenzeitung” (Crown Newspaper), which is the
most widely circulated daily newspaper in Austria, received the award for a
Life’s work, as the manipulator of the republic by means of the media he
leads that support the strategic goals of their owner. People that are not
to the liking of the publisher are exposed in the Kurier with full address
and phone number.

The positive award Defensor Libertatis was won by Karl Korinek, President of
the Constitutional Court for having kept warning about the danger of the
fight against terrorism leading to a total surveillance state. He advised on
the risk that security may displace the fundamental rights such as the
privacy of correspondence, the secrecy of telecommunications and the data
security.

Big Brother Awards 2007 Switzerland (only in French, 9.11.2007)
http://www.bigbrotherawards.ch/2007/presse/pressemitteilungen/bba.pressemitteilung.20071109.6f

Big Brother Awards 2007 Switzerland – Winners (only in German, 9.11.2007)
http://www.bigbrotherawards.ch/2007

Austrian Big Brother Awards 2007 – Winners
http://www.bigbrotherawards.at/2007/English