Big Brother Awards for Privacy Invaders

Dozix007 writes "The Register reports that the shortlist for this year's Big Brother awards for nasty privacy invaders has been released. The awards include: Worst Public Servant, Most Invasive Company, Most Appalling Project, Most Heinous Government Organisation and Lifetime Menace Award - now renamed the David Blunkett Lifetime Menace Award. Pressure group Privacy International, which organises the awards, said it was overwhelmed by nominations for Blunkett, the Home Office and national ID cards but they had been recognised in previous years."

Comments

Website, Awards and Justice

[mfh]

Here is the website for The 2004 UK Big Brother Awards, for those of you who want to skip over that puny Register article. My thoughts on this subject is that it's a great idea to shine a huge spotlight on those who would infringe upon privacy, to give them a taste of their own medicine. Of course I don't condone tapping their phones, blackmailing the execs or sending boxes of poo to their doors (like on Six Feet Under's recent arc). This award show will do just fine, in an almost biblical manner of sinning the sinner.

Re:We Need One of These for the USA

[Anonymous Coward]

The US equivalent is here:
http://www.privacyinternational.org/bigbrot her/us2 004/

Re:I didn't believe I could win!

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually Ashcroft was beaten by the WIDOW of the Governor who died.Although his name remained on the ballot the electorate voted knowing his wife was actually running.If it wasn't for the sympathy vote Ashcroft would be just a senator from Missouri and not your favorite Attorney General.

whois david_blunkett

[Anonymous Coward]

David Blunkett. British politician, now in charge of Homeland Security for the U.K. I'm sure that in spirit it would be translated to the "John Ashcroft Lifetime Award" for U.Sians, but the position Blunkett holds is probably more akin to Tom Ridge's.

Re:whois david_blunkett

[MancDiceman]

No, not quite. He's in charge of the Home Office. The Home Office is not like "Homeland Security". It's much, much, MUCH bigger than that. Homeland Security is basically the equivalent of MI5/Special Branch which whilst coming under the juridstciotn of the Home Office is tiny in comparison to the rest of the organisation.

Think of it this way - you have lots of functions that are carried out by various ministries - the MoD looks after Defence, the Foreign Office sorts out diplomatic affairs (and intelligence agencies), Dept of Health looks after the NHS, etc., etc.

Anything that is left over, goes to the Home Office. This includes all law enforcement (at all levels), part stake in MI5, and anything else nobody else is prepared to take responsibility for. It is a MASSIVE department, dwarfing every other UK government department.

Blunkett, whilst in charge of the Home Office has introduced some interesting laws. Nearly all of them specifically remove civil liberties from the UK citizen, and he has announced an ID card that will eventually replace driver's licenses, passports, etc. and will carry biometric data. A corresponding matchup of the data is held on government computers, it's use is ill-defined, in short, it's a hideous idea that is being lobbied for by a company that stands to make a lot of money out of it.

Re:whois david_blunkett

[uncommonlygood]

David Blunkett. British politician, now in charge of Homeland Security for the U.K. I'm sure that in spirit it would be translated to the "John Ashcroft Lifetime Award" for U.Sians, but the position Blunkett holds is probably more akin to Tom Ridge's.

David Blunkett isn't quite John Ashcroft's opposite number (he's Home Secretary, as opposed to Attorney General). However, he does sometimes seem to think he's a judge.

The reason Blunkett is recognised by this award is that he's trying to introduce a compulsory ID card scheme in the UK, which isn't very popular. He's also full of other gaffes, like he forcibly sacked the head of a police force because two girls were killed "on his watch" as it were. Even though the police force and the father of one of the girls opposed him.

Re:I didn't believe I could win!

[Lord Kano]

Actually Ashcroft was beaten by the WIDOW of the Governor who died.Although his name remained on the ballot the electorate voted knowing his wife was actually running.

Oddly enough, it still wasn't legal for the dead man's name to be on the ballots. To be on the ballot, one must be a resident of the state, to be a resident one must be alive.

LK

Re:I didn't believe I could win!

[Raul654]

The dead senator was Mel Carnahan. He was beaten by Mel's widow, Jean Carnahan (who IIRC decided not to seek reelection in the special election that followed).

Re:Most Invasive Company - LloydsTSB ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Details here. They were trying to freeze the money of an existing customer which by law he is entitled to on demand.

Re:We Need One of These for the USA

[sirdude]

It's called a hy-per-link... :P

Bigbrother USA 2004

Re:Ok, one question ...

[cybermage]

Only the nice ones, of course.

The real big brother awards link...

[RALE007]

The link in the description is only an article at the register.com. The actual website for the US awards can be found here and links for big brother awards for other nations can be found here.

even the ACLU ??

[schwaang]

In the most recent ACLU Northern California Chapter newsletter (pdf), on page 2 there is an opt-out form that says:

Sometimes, as part of our member recruitment program, we exchange or rent our list of members' names to like-minded organizations and publications.

If you pick your jaw up off the floor and keep reading through the tears, a bit further down it says:

...no organization will ever see the names of the members on our list unless an individual responds to their mailing.

That probably doesn't qualify for your list of evil-doers, but it almost made me lose my lunch.