The Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications has finished a regulation bill which directly states that technology manufactures outside of the European Union, NATO or OECD countries cannot be used by the five biggest communication company, daily newspaper Eesti Päevaleht writes.

The state's head of cyber safety Raul Rikk said soon requirements will be established that the state can exclude technologies, which are not considered trustworthy - if they are manufactured in countries where the laws and the juridical area are completely different and Estonia does not have any impact on these companies.

Initially, these requirements will affect the providers of vital services such as the communication companies, which have at least 10,000 clients - Telia, Elisa, Tele2, Levikom and STV. "The companies will have to start to coordinate the software used in the communication networks where signals are processed," Rikk explained.

He admitted that this is intervening in the right to conduct businesses, but added that these kinds of restrictions are important for national security because the state is using private companies' services for communication.

Rikk said in the future, the rights of people working in the public sector to use devices and applications, which the state doesn't consider trustworthy, can also be limited.

"The plan is that if we know that certain technology is not trustworthy, we need to ensure that we won't use them ourselves," Rikk said. "It should affect providers of vital services in the future more widely," he added.

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