“The legislation will also provide for certain parts of electronic communications networks to be designated as being critical and certain powers which would ensure that high-risk vendors would not be used in our critical electronic communications networks," it said. The statement said: “The Government also announced that it plans to introduce primary legislation which would allow the Minister of the Environment, Climate and Communications to assess the risk profile of providers of electronic communications network equipment and, if required, to designate certain vendors as being high-risk. It said this requirement would “secure” the electronic communications infrastructure within the State. The Government announced the publication for consultation of the Electronic Communications Security Measures (ECSMs) – a detailed set of technical and organisational measures that providers of public electronic communications networks and publicly available electronic communications services will be required to implement. While private operators are largely responsible for the secure rollout of 5G, member states are responsible for national security and network security is considered of strategic importance to the EU. The EU toolbox was published in January 2020 and is a coordinated European approach based on a common set of measures, aimed at mitigating the main cybersecurity risks of 5G networks. It said the Government had endorsed the ‘EU 5G Security Toolbox’ as the framework by which Ireland will secure its next-generation electronic communications networks.
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The department statement said the Government had agreed on a number of measures to enhance the security of electronic communications, including 5G networks. Ireland’s current electronic communications infrastructure is largely based on 4G mobile networks and fixed broadband but many operators provide 5G networks.Ī statement issued by the Department of Communications does not refer to any specific companies – similar to the stance taken by the European Commission and the EU cybersecurity Body ENISA – and only refers to companies generally that might pose a risk. This was because of fears within the British Government of suspected links with the authoritarian Chinese state and claims Chinese intelligence agencies could gain access to 5G networks – claims rejected by the company. Last November, the British Government announced that Chinese company Huawei would be banned from the UK 5G telecoms infrastructure.
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The proposed legislation will enable certain parts of the 5G network or infrastructure to be designated as “critical” for the State and allow the minister to ban high-risk companies from working in those areas.