The BigBrotherAward in the Technology category goes to Google for the AI assistant Gemini, which is now clandestinely, but compulsorily installed on Android smartphones. Gemini has access to wide-ranging usage and communication data, which are used to train Google’s AI and also reviewed by human examiners. This could include full chat histories – without consent from communication partners. To deactivate this AI assistant, users have to make complex changes in several menus.

Laudator: Frank Rosengart