Health, Justice Ministers win Big Brother Award for privacy violations

Caretaker Ministers Hugo de Jonge (Public Health) and Ferdinand Grapperhaus (Justice and Security) have the dubious honor of winning the Big Brother Award this year. Every year, civil rights organization Bits of Freedom presents these awards to "the biggest privacy violators in the Netherlands."

De Jonge received the Audience Award with a large majority of the votes for introducing the coronavirus access pass. According to Bits of Freedom, that measure is "insufficiently motivated." The civil rights organization applauds the fact that the Cabinet has postponed the introduction of the 2G policy, in which a negative test is no longer sufficient to get a QR code for your access pass.

Grapperhaus received an oeuvre prize from the professional jury "for a whole series of missteps" by his Ministry. "It is not often that we present a Lifetime Achievement Award, but this Ministry has made us so furious that we and our jury of experts saw no other option," said Bits of Freedom director Evelyn Austin. "For example, caretaker Minister Grapperhaus secretly turned the National Coordinator for Counterterrorism and Security (NCTV) into a new secret service, the police under his supervision break the law time and again, and our Minister for Legal Protection seems to have disappeared completely without a trace."

Grapperhaus personally received his award. Minister De Jonge was too busy to be there in person.