Privacy International Announces "Winners"

Privacy International just announced the results of its competition to find the world's most pointless, intrusive and egregious security measures. The competition, launched in February, attracted almost 5,000 nominations from 35 countries. While the air security sector dominated the competition, nominations arose from almost all areas of private and public sector activity. The winners include JFK Airport, T-Mobile (UK), Michigan Correctional facilities and the Australian Government.

The "Stupid Security" award was judged by a distinguished international panel of security and privacy experts and is intended to highlight the absurdities of the security industry. Privacy International's director, Simon Davies, said his group took the initiative because of 'innumerable' security initiatives around the world that had absolutely no genuine security benefit.

"The extraordinary number of nominations indicates that the situation has become ridiculous" said Mr Davies. "Security has become the smokescreen for incompetent and robotic managers the world over".

'The situation has become more than an irritation to the public. It has become an outright danger".

The "winners" include:

• Philadelphia International Airport for over-reaction to a bottle of cologne
• Runner-Up  - Heathrow Airport for quarantining a quantity of green tea
• Delta Terminal at JFK Airport for forcing a nursing mother to drink her own breast milk
• San Francisco International Airport for endangering the public [?]

A complete list of the winners is on the organization's website.

FMI: www.privacyinternational.org/activities/stupidsecurity/