The Australian Government has won the Most Egregiously Stupid Award presented as part of Privacy International’s competition for Stupid Security Awards, a media release from the organisation says:

Privacy International (PI) is a human rights group formed in 1990 as a watchdog on surveillance by governments and corporations.

The competition was launched to find the world’s most pointless, intrusive and egregious security measures.

Launched in February, it attracted almost 5000 nominations from 35 countries. While the air security sector dominated the competition, nominations came from almost all areas of private and public sector activity. Other winners include JFK Airport, T-Mobile (UK), and Michigan Correctional facilities.

The “Stupid Security” award was judged by an 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:

Most Egregiously Stupid Award:

Winner: The Australian Government for a litany of pointless, irritating and self-serving security measures.

Runner-Up: Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov for the ‘Propiska’ Identity Papers.

Most Inexplicably Stupid Award

Winner: Philadelphia International Airport for over-reaction to a bottle of cologne.

Runner-Up: Heathrow Airport for quarantining a quantity of green tea.

Most Annoyingly Stupid Award

Winner: T-Mobile (UK) for pointless and idiotic financial security measures.

Runner-Up: Bay Area Rapid Transport (Bart) for closing its restrooms.

Most Flagrantly Intrusive Award

Winner: Delta Terminal at JFK Airport for forcing a nursing mother to drink her own breast milk.

Runner-Up: Carson City Correctional Facility, Michigan for forcing women visitors to wear bras.

Most Stupidly Counter Productive Award

Winner: San Francisco General Hospital for blind idiocy in its identity checking procedures.

Runner-Up: San Francisco International Airport for endangering the public.

Dishonourable Mention: The New Yorker Hotel, New York for aggressive, unnecessary and meaningless security measures.

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