Iranian Parliament to Investigate VPNs and National Data Management

The parliament members in today's public session approved the proposal to investigate the performance of national data gateway management systems and countering VPNs with a majority vote.

Investigation Approval

Today, Tuesday, November 24, the report by the Industries and Mines Commission on approving the investigation into the performance of national data gateway management systems and countering governance-evading tools (VPNs) was on the agenda. The request for this investigation was approved with 198 votes in favor, 8 against, and 2 abstentions from 223 representatives present in the Islamic Consultative Assembly.

Investigation Focus Areas

The axes of the investigation are as follows:

1. What is the ratio of domestic traffic consumption to foreign consumption? What plan do you have to increase the share of domestic traffic from the country's total traffic consumption and achieve the goal of 70% domestic traffic?
2. According to the June 3, 2017 resolution of the Supreme Council of Cyberspace, how much data of Iranian citizens has been shared with foreign platforms? How much data and information of foreign platforms is stored and hosted in the National Information Network space? What actions have you taken for proper governance of big data?
3. Encrypted data and information by foreign tools and platforms that cannot be monitored by competent authorities are mainly exchanged by which systems and software in order of data volume?
4. What measures have been implemented by governmental authorities to protect Iranian citizens' data and information and prevent exploitation and misuse by adversaries?
5. Which individuals and legal entities benefit from selling various tools to bypass data security systems, such as software known as VPNs?
6. Considering some senior government officials' announcement of a financial turnover of 20 to 50 trillion tomans from VPN sales, what is the income share? Who are the above-mentioned stakeholders and into whose pockets does this amount go? What actions have been taken to combat such underground trade that harms the people?
7. What is the basis for pricing traffic and internet bandwidth for people as the end consumer? How far should people bear the costs resulting from inefficient network management?
8. What oversight do cooperating and supervising entities in national data exchange have in safeguarding data in this VPN-selling environment?
9. What actions have been taken against violations by individuals and government agents involved in the VPN sales mafia?
10. What measures have you taken to preserve the mental health and security of children in the virtual space and assist parents in monitoring the proper use of internet data and reducing household costs in healthy and beneficial internet use?
11. Given that widespread use of governance-evading tools has led to foreign platforms accessing Iranian citizens' data and information and violating citizens' privacy, causing national security threats, what actions have you taken to counter foreign VPNs?