Iran official: Smartphone Usage by Authorities with Access to Classified Information Banned
Published June 13, 2015
TEHRAN, Iran – A senior Iranian official says authorities with access to classified information will be banned from using smartphones.
Gen. Gholam Reza Jalali, who heads an Iranian military unit in charge of combatting sabotage, is quoted by the semiofficial ISNA news agency as saying Saturday that instructions for the ban have already been drawn up and await ratification.
Jalali argued that the main danger is the possibility that smartphone manufacturers — all of whom are based in Western countries — could have access to data stored on the phones.
Iran considers itself to have been the target of a complicated cyber war since 2010, when a virus known as Stuxnet disrupted controls on some of its nuclear centrifuges.