TEHRAN – Iranian goverment has set a one-year deadline for foreign social media to hand over data on their Iranian users, state news agency IRNA said Sunday.
It said the decision was taken on Saturday at a meeting of an Iranian committee on the use of cyberspace headed by Hassan Rouhani that serves as an IT regulator.
‘Foreign social media active in the country must transfer to Iran all the data they hold on Iranian citizens’ within a year, IRNA said.
The measure will affect, in particular, Telegram, an instant messaging app with more than 20 million users in the Islamic republic, a country of 80 million people.
IRNA said the committee had also decided to work to develop homegrown social media to compete with foreign networks.
Authorities in Iran, where Facebook and Twitter are officially banned although users can gain access with easily available software, have for years tried to impose curbs on Iranians using social media.
Source: AFP, 29 May 2016