According to Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, the imposition of the additional sanction is necessary to protect the security of Estonia. “The ban on Yandex gives a clear signal that companies cooperating with Russian special services are not welcome in Estonia. We have also proposed that the European Union impose a sanction on Yandex.”
An important reason for imposing the sanction is the recent decision of Russia that Yandex must share the personal data it collects with the local special service. “The purpose of the sanction is to prevent the collection and use of the data of Estonian users by the Russian intelligence services. In order to use the Yandex application, it is necessary to provide access to a large amount of personal data that is processed on the servers of the company in Russia and that may be used in intelligence activities against Estonia and Europe. In the current political situation, this is a significant threat to the security of Estonia,” explained Andres Sutt, Minister of Entrepreneurship and Information Technology.
A restriction will be imposed on Yandex NV on providing the service and enabling the provision of the service in Estonia. This means that Yandex NV is prohibited from organising and providing taxi services Estonia. It is also prohibited to allow Yandex to make the services mentioned directly or indirectly available.
As a result of the sanction, taxi companies and drivers using Yandex are prohibited from using the Yandex taxi application (Yandex Pro) for rides. In order to implement the restriction and raise awareness, the Consumer Protection and Technical Regulatory Authority will notify the holders of taxi licences of the state sanction through the register of economic activities. Internet service providers must also restrict access to websites and applications related to the the taxi service of Yandex NV (Yandex Go and Yandex Pro). Application stores (Google Play, App Store, etc.) must also restrict the downloading of Yandex taxi applications from their application store and stop offering updates to the applications.
The sanction will take effect on 11 April.
