Formation of ‘Anti-Filtering Committee’ for Electronic Businesses
Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi, Iran’s Minister of Communications and Information Technology, announced the formation of an ‘Anti-Filtering Committee’ within the government. The committee’s task is to prevent ‘legitimate’ activities from being filtered along with ‘illegitimate’ ones in the field of electronic financial services.
Azari Jahromi, speaking at the eighth annual conference on electronic banking and payment systems, considered the formation of the committee possible through cooperation with the Legal Deputy of the President’s Office. He stated that the committee is intended to prevent the filtering of businesses that he described as ‘legitimate.”
Iranian media have referred to the committee mentioned by the Minister of Communications as the ‘Anti-Filtering Committee’: “Sometimes, instead of creating obstacles for unauthorized activities, legitimate activities are subject to filtering. To resolve such problems, an anti-filtering committee was formed within the government.”
The reference by this young member of President Rouhani’s cabinet aims at removing obstacles for greater utilization of financial technology services (FinTech) in the field of internet businesses and electronic banking services.
Without providing statistics or figures, he considered the FinTech economy in Iran during 2017 to be on an upward trend: “Of course, in the field of FinTech development, we were not very successful and we need to facilitate the obstacles they face.”
Telegram Remains Filtered, Instagram Next in Line!
Azari Jahromi did not provide clarification regarding the ‘scope of support’ of the anti-filtering committee and whether websites and social networks would also be covered by this committee’s protections.
The Telegram network is one of the most widely used social software applications for Iranian users to launch businesses and economic activities. This application received increased attention from Iranian users following protest events in 2017.
Telegram was filtered some time ago by order of judicial authorities. However, the Deputy Prosecutor General of Iran for Cyberspace said: “Thirty million and one hundred thousand people bypass the Telegram filter through VPN tools like Hotgram and Telegram Gold.”
Instagram, which is considered the second most popular software application among Iranian users, faces pressure from various government bodies and the judicial structure, and although rumors of its filtering can be heard, it has not yet been implemented.
Previously, Javad Karimi Qadousi, representative of Mashhad in the Islamic Consultative Assembly, had stated on behalf of Azari Jahromi that “we will soon filter Instagram.”
The scope of the anti-filtering committee’s activities and support is not clearly defined, and it remains unclear how users conducting ‘legitimate’ activities mentioned by Iran’s Minister of Communications on Telegram and Instagram could circumvent the official filtering border in Iran.
Source: DW
