Bulgarian Interior, Mobile Operators Receive 'Big Brother' Anti-Awards

Bulgaria's Program for Access to Information foundation has given the "Big Brither" anti-awards for the fifth time. Photo by BGNES

Bulgaria's Interior Ministry and mobile operators have received the anti-award "Big Brother" for infringement of privacy.

The anti-awards "Big Brother" in Bulgaria are organized by the Program for Access to Information foundation and were given Wednesday for the fifth time.

The awards are given to state structures, private companies or individuals, who have violated the right to privacy and the right to protection of citizens' data.

This year, the awards were given in two categories – infringement of privacy in the area of state governance and infringement of privacy in the private sector. The winners are determined by a jury on the basis of justified nomination.

The wiretapping scandal in Bulgaria determined the selection of the Interior Ministry as a winner in the category for infringement of privacy in the public sector.

The anti-award was given to the ministry because of the use of special surveillance devices outside of legal purposes, like the presenting of the transcript of conversations between doctors in the town of Gorna Oryahovitsa by the Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov.

Another reason for the award were the problems with police registration, which is not being destroyed even after the order for keeping data of citizens over minor infringements has expired.

The Bulgarian Parliament shared the award with the Interior Ministry because of the bad legislation, which allows violations with wiretapping, and because of the parliamentary subcommittee for control over the use of special surveillance devices, which keeps its reports secret.

The three major mobile operators in Bulgaria- M-tel, Globul and Vivacom – were awarded for systematic violation of the citizens' rights to protection of private data.

The reasons are the frequent complaints by citizens for transferring of personal data of subscribers without their knowledge and the excessive storage of personal data even of subscribers with expired contracts.

The "Big Brother" awards are established by "Privacy International", an international NGO for protection of privacy. The name of the awards is inspired by the popular book by George Orwell "1984".

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