As a former judge I can testify that these awards may not pretend to be particularly scientific, but they’re extremely effective in raising awareness of important issues and tremendous fun - the most fun, I’d say, of anything that crops up in the world of government and IT. So don’t be scared of them, don’t pick holes. If you win one, accept it with good grace and think about why you might actually deserve this colossal raspberry.

The winners are:

- for worst organisation Choicepoint (ahead of runners up Google, SWIFT, and Booz Allen Hamilton)
- for worst public official Stewart Baker (ahead of runners up Tony Blair, Vladimir Putin, and Alberto Gonzales)
- for most heinous government the UK (ahead of China, the US&A, the EU and Tunisia)
- most appalling project or technology: ICAO (US&A Border Policy, India’s Ministry for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions for requiring government employees to disclose their menstrual cycles on job appraisal forms, and the CCTV industry
and for lifetime menace: “the common good” in whose name every bad policy is justified (ahead of the biometrics industry, the military-industrial complex, and the IP industry).

Hurrah. Sounds like a great night out. Wish we’d all been there.