negative price
“Big Brother Awards” to Lieferando and Klarna
An employee of the Lieferando food delivery service. The “Big Brother Awards” were given to the delivery service and to Klarna. Photo: Jan Woitas/dpa-Zentralbild/dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
Uninhibited data collection or necessary technology? When it comes to the “Big Brother Award”, opinions differ. The Bielefeld data protection officers speak of total control and lack of transparency.
The negative prize “Big Brother Award” this year goes to the delivery service Lieferando and the Swedish company Klarna. According to the Bielefeld data protection association Digitalcourage, Lieferando uses an app to ensure that its drivers are “inadmissibly total checked”.
According to the justification, the behavior of the employees is recorded in detail and to the second. At the Swedish payment service provider, data protection officials criticize the fact that data from the areas of purchasing, price comparison, personal financial management, creditworthiness checks and banking are bundled in an “intransparent” manner. Both companies rejected the allegations against the German Press Agency and emphasized that they would comply with all legal rules and regulations.
The prizes were to be awarded in different categories at a gala in Bielefeld in the evening. Lieferando should receive the “award” in the category working environment, Klarna in the area of consumer protection.
Explanations rejected?
A spokesman for the Lieferando mother criticized that the company would have liked to explain the criticized app to the jury. However, Digitalcourage rejected the offer. «Like other services, we also operate GPS-based logistics. The driver app complies with the applicable data protection regulations, and the locations and times determined are essential for the proper operation of our delivery service,” said spokesman Oliver Klug of the dpa. The aim is to assign orders to drivers, provide them with integrated navigation and give restaurateurs and consumers the opportunity to check the status of the order. “We cannot communicate with our drivers by fax,” the company said.
Another “Big Brother Award” goes to the Irish data protection authority (DPC – Data Protection Commissioner). Digitalcourage accuses her of permanently sabotaging European data protection law and thus making Ireland an oasis for companies like Facebook, Google and Apple. DPC did not respond to a request from dpa.
Other award winners include the Federal Criminal Police Office (authorities and administration), representing the German police, for the storage and use of personal data. The accusation is that the investigators, contrary to the requirements of European law, did not mark the data or did not mark it sufficiently. As a result, there is a risk that citizens will be unfairly treated as dangerous or criminals. Bundesdruckerei received the award in the technology category. The data protectionists accuse her of using and promoting blockchain technology to authenticate school reports, which they see as nonsensical.
The jury for the “Oscars for data octopuses” includes Frank Rosengart from the Chaos Computer Club and Thilo Weichert, the former data protection officer for the state of Schleswig-Holstein.