The Big Brother awards for the biggest invasions of privacy in the Czech Republic last year have been awarded to the Czech Regional Development Ministry, large grocery chains, and Matej Husek, a member of the board of directors of Seznam.cz. Representatives of the organisation Iuridicum Remedium (IuRe) announced the results of the 20th year of the mock awards yesterday.
IuRe also awarded a “long-term snooping” award to the Interior Ministry for its proposal to legally regulate the use of camera systems with facial recognition.
A positive award was given to the Wikimedia Foundation for protecting the identity of Wikipedia editors.
The organisation says the Interior Ministry is trying to circumvent regulations on the use of facial recognition systems. According to IuRe, the purpose of the amendment was to transpose into Czech law the rules required by the new EU regulation on artificial intelligence. The basic control mechanism for the use of the systems should be the authorisation of each use by an independent court. According to IuRe, the Interior Ministry’s amendment denies this control.
The jury labelled the Ministry of Regional Development as the “biggest administrative stalker” because of its draft amendment to the law on tourism, introducing a unified system for registering guests, the “eTurista” system.
Karolina Nova, spokeswoman for the ministry, told CTK that thanks to the registry, the protection of guests would be strengthened, as the current method of registration did not guarantee that accommodation providers handled the data correctly.
In the “corporate snooping” category, IuRe awarded this year’s prize jointly to Albert, Billa, Coop, Globus, Kaufland, Lidl, Norma, Penny and Tesco, large retail chains operating supermarkets and hypermarkets with groceries, for their discount apps. The organisation said the chains pushed their customers to use discount apps, “but the use of the apps involves extensive collection of personal data and sophisticated use of those data.”
According to Tomas Prouza, head of the Czech Union of Trade and Tourism, the chains fully respect the protection of personal data. Moreover, he told CTK, customers can decide for themselves whether and how to use the apps.
Seznam.cz executive Husek told Ales Borovan’s First League podcast last May that “the internet without targeting and without recommendation is actually a terribly sad place.” IuRe said he was referring to the ongoing practice of Seznam.cz offering the use of its services either for free with targeted advertising or for a fee. However, the legality of this practice is disputed, according to IuRe.
Husek, whose response was provided by the organization, said he considers his statement to be true and factually correct. “It just actually has a much broader scope than just user data and advertising, which is the focus of Iuridicum Remedium’s justification,” he said in a press release. He added that his quotes had not been limited to advertising, but to Internet content in general.
The Wikimedia Foundation received a positive award for paying close attention to protecting Wikipedia editors from threats or reprisals related to their edits.
