Iranian citizens are being assigned special government-issued email addresses, which Communications Minister Mohammad Hassan Nami says “must be used for electronic communication with government agencies” so “government interactions with the people will take place electronically.”
Though 75% of Iranian citizens use the internet, they experience seemingly deliberately slow connection speeds, “obscenity” filters, various blocks, inability The relatively moderate Iranian President-elect Hassan Rouhani is against this level of state intervention in private lives of the people.
To the American public, “government-issued email addresses” may sound like additional state intervention and invasion of privacy, especially following the revelations of our NSA’s PRISM program, but it’s meant to be a step forward.
The communications minister has not yet made a statement on how the new internet policies will effect private email address use or whether the national email addresses will be mandatory.
