By decision of the Special Cyber Space Headquarters, the ban on official communications of government agencies on non‑native messaging platforms was lifted by consensus of the members.
Abbas Pazouki, Deputy for Communications and Information of the Office of the First Vice President, after the meeting of the Special Headquarters for Organizing and Leading Cyberspace chaired by Mohammadreza Aref, First Vice of Pezeshkian, announced in a note the lifting of the ban on official communications of government agencies on non‑native messaging platforms and wrote:
“The story of a strange self‑sanction; when we decided to return to the very place where the people are!
Today the meeting of the Special Headquarters for Organizing and Leading Cyberspace was held under the chairmanship of Dr. Aref. One of those meetings that when it ended, I said to myself that finally one of the country’s strange and tangled media knots has been untied after years.
What was the story? Years ago a strange decision had been made; they had issued a directive that no government body or organization has the right to provide information on non‑native messaging platforms! What was the result? People, youths and the media read news and rumors on international platforms, but government agencies were absent exactly where the people were and replied on another platform! We had literally left the field open to rumors and psychological operations of those foreign media and had been harmed a lot from that quarter.
Today in the meeting when the report of this self‑sanction was put on the table, frank discussions took place. In the end, with the brave decision of the Headquarters, the lock on the work was broken: the ban on using non‑native messaging platforms for official communications of agencies was lifted by full consensus of all members of the Headquarters.”
The National Iran‑Boum Plan to Realize e‑Government
According to ISNA, Pazouki added in the continuation of his writing
In the continuation of the session, the national and strategic digital ecosystem plan (Iran‑Boum) or e‑government was presented; a plan that can solve many of the country’s knots like paperwork, corruption, citizens’ delays and traffic. Experts from the Ministry of Communications put an excellent native plan on the table and by the end of the fourteenth administration, the dream of e‑government will be realized; meaning every citizen for all their affairs from administrative tasks to academic, commercial, health, economic, real estate, tax matters, etc. only needs to enter a single platform and do their work with a few clicks. In this platform, processes are greatly shortened and proceed quickly with the help of artificial intelligence. Even Dr. Aref asked the Ministry of Communications to extract and amend all contradictory regulations and bylaws for the success of this plan so that no one, by virtue of a contradictory regulation, puts people again into the maze of administrative paperwork. Here I ask my good colleagues in the Ministry of Communications to inform the public about this large, strategic and hopeful plan.
Of course Dr. Aref also said things that clarified the government’s strategy in the field of science and technology and in untying people’s problems and showed a serious will at work. He said: “We were a pioneer and a claimant of technology in the region in the 2000s, but let us admit that now we do not have that position in some areas! We must make up for this backwardness quickly; we have no time and must move forward swiftly.”
Dr. Aref touched on an old pain and said: “We must not do anything contradictory. What kind of e‑government is this that we create a digital file, but behind it we have to hand several binders of paper to the citizen under their arm?! Paperwork must be officially eliminated.”
When the discussion reached cyber security and electronic warfare, the frankness of the work increased. Dr. Aref said the enemy has drawn the sword on the cyber front and data security is vital; but he added: “This Headquarters is for the whole government and the system and its approvals are communicated with the signature of the President who is also the Chairman of the Supreme National Security Council! Yes, experts and academics should come to the working groups to give opinions and discuss; but when we reach consensus around this table and make a decision, no agency has the right to play a contrary tune or show bureaucratic prejudice. The backing of these approvals is the government and the President himself and we say the final word right here.”