The Big Brother Awards (BBAs) recognize "the government and private sector organizations ... which have done the most to threaten

personal privacy Privacy (, ) is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves, and thereby express themselves selectively. The domain of privacy partially overlaps with security, which can include the concepts of a ...

". They are named after the George Orwell character Big Brother from the novel ''

Nineteen Eighty-Four ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' (also stylised as ''1984'') is a dystopian social science fiction novel and cautionary tale written by the English writer George Orwell. It was published on 8 June 1949 by Secker & Warburg as Orwell's ninth and final ...

''. They are awarded yearly to authorities, companies, organizations, and persons that have been acting particularly and consistently to threaten or violate people's privacy, or disclosed people's

personal data Personal data, also known as personal information or personally identifiable information (PII), is any information related to an identifiable person. The abbreviation PII is widely accepted in the United States, but the phrase it abbreviates ha ...

to third parties. The awards are intended to draw public attention to privacy issues and related alarming trends in society, especially in data privacy. The contest is organized by loose coalition of

nongovernmental organizations A non-governmental organization (NGO) or non-governmental organisation (see spelling differences) is an organization that generally is formed independent from government. They are typically nonprofit entities, and many of them are active in h ...

, including Iuridicum Remedium, Privacy International, and others, although some national-level BBAs are organized by specific sponsors. The German Big Brother Awards are organized and hosted by

Digitalcourage Digitalcourage – known until November 2012 as FoeBuD (''Verein zur Förderung des öffentlichen bewegten und unbewegten Datenverkehrs'') – is a German privacy and digital rights organisation. Under the motif of preserving "a world worth livi ...

(formerly FoeBuD) in Bielefeld. The United States most recently hosted its Big Brother Awards – also known as the Orwell Awards or simply the Orwells – on 14 April 2005 in Seattle, Washington. They had previously been hosted in Berkeley, California, on 12 April 2004; New York City on 3 April 2003; San Francisco, California, on 18 April 2002; and Cambridge, Massachusetts, on 7 March 2001. The first annual US Big Brother Awards were made at the

Computers, Freedom and Privacy Conference The Computers, Freedom and Privacy Conference (or CFP, or the Conference on Computers, Freedom and Privacy) is an annual academic conference held in the United States or Canada about the intersection of computer technology, freedom, and privacy i ...

in Washington, D.C., on 7 April 1999, the 50th anniversary of the publication of Orwell's ''Nineteen Eighty-Four''. The awards were made by Simon Davies, managing director of the London-based Privacy International to recognize "the government and private sector organizations which have done the most to invade personal privacy in the United States." The awards were given in five categories: Greatest Corporate Invader, Lifetime Menace, Most Invasive Program, People's Choice, and Worst Public Official.

Countries

The following countries have their own version of the Big Brother Awards: * Australia *

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous c ...

* Belgium
Bulgaria
* Czech Republic * Denmark * Finland * France * Germany * Hungary * Italy * Japan (2003) * Netherlands * New Zealand * Spain * Switzerland * United Kingdom * United States

References

External links

International Website about the Big Brother Awards
Espionage Global surveillance Ironic and humorous awards Mass surveillance Privacy awards {{Award-stub

Countries

See also

References

External links