I’ve been looking for an English-language story on the Dutch Big Brother Awards. So far, this brief report from Telecompaper:
Dutch digital rights group Bits of Freedom issued four ‘Big Brother Awards’ to people and organisations the group claims form the biggest threat to personal privacy. Justice minister Ivo Opstelten received a jury prize for his proposal to keep automatic scans of licence plates for four weeks, a bill which BoF claims is a legalisation of illegal action by the police. Trans Link Systems received the award for businesses for the unsecure public trasport chip card. The social affairs and employment ministry was criticised for its policy of backdoor inspections. The group named as the worst proposal Deep Packet Inspection, suggested by the justice ministry as a means of blocking online child pornography. The public’s prize also went to Trans Link. At the same, computer expert Rob Gonggrijp received a prize for its efforts to protect privacy.
I’m somewhat surprised not to see any mention of the fingerprint/passport issue.
Maybe one of my Dutch readers can provide some additional information on the awards or another link. I don’t see anything on Bits of Freedom’s web site, so I’m probably doing something wrong (again!).
The Telecompaper mentions Rob Gonggrijp. Is that a typo for Rop Gonggrijp – the computer expert whose Twitter records our DOJ sought as part of its WikiLeaks investigation? If so, how wonderfully ironic that while our country treats him like a potential criminal, his own country recognizes him for his efforts to protect privacy.