Estonia, Internet, Legislation, Security, Technology, USA

Ilves said, answering the question whether PRISM as well as the system observing net communications of European residents makes him worried: "Yes. I am really worried, reading claims that allow concluding that the privacy of Estonian and other European Union citizens could be violated. We all want more information about that."

Ilves noted that based on the information so far it seems that the PRISM programme has mostly been used to map suspicious web communications networks. "But to those in Estonia who are worried that someone could observe the content of our electronic messages I stress: Estonia is the only state in Europe and most likely in the world that offers all residents over 16 years of age the chance of communicating in an encrypted way."

Ilves said that Estonia follows in its legalisation the principle that the citizen has to know what data the state has about im and who uses it. Unfortunately not all companies, search engines, social networks and e-services we use follow that principle. "Here we bear also responsibility, so we should know: every time we "like" something, it is information about us that we give some social network company to use," Ilves said.