Iran to give all citizens state-controlled email addresses

Iran has taken another step in its bid for complete control over its citizens’ online activities. Following plans for an “Iran-ternet“, selective filtering of social media sites and blocking of international email providers, the state will apparently begin assigning email addresses to each citizen.

According to Reuters, communications minister Mohammad Hassan Nami said that the email addresses would aid communication between the Iranian state and its people.

“For mutual interaction and communication between the government and the people, from now on every Iranian will receive a special email address,” the semi-official Mehr news agency quoted Nami as saying. “With the assignment of an email address to every Iranian, government interactions with the people will take place electronically.”

At this stage, it’s unclear whether the email addresses will be mandatory or if they’ll affect Iranians’ private email addresses. They will however have to use them when attempting to communicate with state bodies.

Interestingly, Nami maintains that the state-issued addresses, which will use the “mail.post.ir” domain, will help maintain the privacy of the country’s citizens. That seems to reflect the position of Iran’s newly elected president Hassan Rouhani, a relative moderate who believes in less state interference in people’s lives. Whether that ordinary Iranians will be granted more internet freedom when he takes office later this year remains to be seen.

A number of data centres are reportedly being set up across Iran to support the new system.