Iran gives 1 year to foreign messengers to transfer servers to the country

Mind Brothers Experience

Not only Russia pursues a clear policy of isolating the national network segment with the transfer of foreign servers into the country , licensing / banning western messengers , etc. There are a number of other countries, including China, Belarus, Iran and some others, following the path of tight state control over communications.

Today, the Iranian authorities have announced that they give foreign Internet companies exactly 1 year to organize the exchange of traffic between Iranian users strictly within national borders. Formally, this is done to protect the personal data of Iranians so that they are not stored “incomprehensibly where” outside the country. Very familiar rhetoric.

“In order for foreign companies with messaging services to continue their activities in the country, they are obliged to transfer all data and activity of Iranian citizens to the territory of the country,” said a new resolution of the Supreme Council for Cyberspace of Iran. The news yesterday was broadcast on television by the state news agency IRNA.


^{Elders of Iranian Cyberspace High Council meet with President, September 5, 2015}
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The elders of the High Council on Cyberspace, who are appointed by the President of Iran, made this decision in accordance with the “recommendations and expressed concern of the supreme leader,” reports IRNA.

The new requirements will also affect the Telegram messenger, which has recently become very popular in Iran due to its security settings and message encryption. Its Iranian audience is estimated at 20 million users (with a population of 80 million people).

In November 2015, the authorities announced the arrest of administrators of more than 20 Telegram groups for distributing “immoral content”. On the same basis, law enforcement agencies recently identified and arrested 8 Iranian female bloggers who published photos with loose hair on Instagram.

In October 2015, Telegram executive director Pavel Durov tweeted that the Iranian authorities want to use Telegram to spy on their citizens: “We cannot and will not help them do it,” he said.