Big Brother Awards 2026: Negative prizes for the Digital Omnibus and tax ID

Digitalcourage handed out the Big Brother Awards 2026 in Bielefeld on Friday, 25 September 2026. It was the 26th edition. The negative prize goes to actors who, in the view of a five-member jury, particularly infringe on informational self-determination. heise online and netzpolitik.org reported on the ceremony.

EU Commission: Digital Omnibus

The European Commission received the award in the EU and Europe category. The criticism targets the so-called Digital Omnibus. Its proposals to deregulate the European data economy have been controversial for months. Redefining "personal data" could mean IP addresses and tracking cookies no longer qualify as personal data for advertisers. This would effectively end the cookie banner.

Another issue is the planned extension of legitimate interest to AI model training, alongside reduced approval requirements for repurposing data. Critics like data protection expert and CCC spokesperson Rainer Bendrath see this as a weakening of the right of access. Around 1,800 amendments have been tabled in the European Parliament, according to earlier reports.

Dobrindt, Telekom, Fielmann and Apollo

Federal Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt (CSU) receives the prize for the second consecutive year, this time for register modernisation and the identification number law. The tax ID is set to become a cross-authority personal identifier. Frank Rosengart of the Chaos Computer Club highlighted the risk. He noted that the seemingly harmless number 12,345 could link data sets from all state registers.

Deutsche Telekom took the award in the "preventive" category, partly due to planned takeovers in the US mobile market. Fielmann and Apollo-Optik also drew criticism for selling smart glasses with cameras. netzpolitik.org dubbed it a "surveillance Oscar" for the optician chains. An Australian study cited in the report suggests assaults are more likely with smart glasses than with phone cameras. The authors also pointed to exploitative working conditions for contractors in Kenya, where recordings are reviewed, including toilet visits, naked people, and private messages.

Northern Church and youth prize

The Evangelical Northern Church was criticised for requiring employees to use Microsoft 365 applications. The youth prize focused on young people's relationship with surveillance technology, under the title "the broken rollercoaster".

The jury also examined international links between standards and power. The expansion of ID card and social security numbers in the USA, and the Russian conscription system, serve as examples of how personal identifiers become tools of control.

One number unlocks data from every state register. The identifier is the key that binds the registers together.