BBA Awards Italy 2008

(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar)

The Italian Big Brother Awards for 2008 were presented on 10 May 2008 during
an e-privacy convention in Florence. The Italian jury is formed by 6 jurors
who have to vote over 26 nominations, out of which 5 are for the positive
award.

The public institution award was received by the Ministry of Economics for
its very ample checking instruments. The institution is not the one to prove
the citizens are breaking the law, instead it requires the tax payers to
prove they are on the right side of the law. With the excuse of fighting tax
evasion, the institution has been recently empowered to create mass personal
(bank, health etc.) data filing, an obvious and useless violation of the
citizens’ privacy.

The award for the worst private company was received by Yahoo for the
intensive monitoring of its users. Yahoo has provided the Italian Government
with data of its users. In the case of the Chinese journalist Shi Tao,
during a hearing in front of a US Congress commission on 11 November 2007,
Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang has admitted and apologized for the action and for
having previously denying the fact.

The most invasive technology was considered to be the DNA Bank of the RIS
(the Scientific Investigation Division of the “carabinieri”) of Parma which
was created “quietly” without any specific normative act. No details are
known about the genetic database and there is an obvious risk of abusing the
respective data.

TV journalist Bruno Vespa was awarded the “Boot in the Mouth” price for
having dealt superficially and therefore misinforming people about the
Internet and new technologies. During a broadcast on 21 February 2008, as in
other previous occasions, he expressed alarming ideas on the impact on
privacy and the education of young people of the Internet in general and of
the new technologies.

The life time award was received by Franco Frattini, the former EU
Commissioner for Justice and Internal Affairs and since 8 May 2008 the
Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs, for having spread an idea of security
that involves “monitoring and censuring dangerous words”.

“Winston Smith – Privacy hero” positive awarded was given to
Autistici/Inventati team for its entire activity and for having provided,
voluntarily and free-of-charge, for years, communication services that have
observed privacy more than the commercial or institutional organisations.

Autistici/Inventati is the hero of privacy (only in Italian, 12.05.2008)
http://punto-informatico.it/2281258/PI/News/Autistici-Inventati–egrave–l-eroe-della-privacy/p.aspx

Big Brother Award Italy 2008 (only in Italian, 10.05.2008)
http://bba.winstonsmith.info/

EDRi-gram: ENDitorial: “Frattinising” isn’t the only threat (26.09.2007)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number5.18/frattinising