Iran’s Digital Surveillance Machine Is Almost Complete

“CCTV networks, facial-recognition systems, applications designed to capture or log private user messages, and systems assessing citizens’ lifestyle patterns and behavioral profiles collectively provide the Islamic Republic’s security agencies with the means for broad and precise monitoring of the population,” the analysis says.

Put another way, Holistic Resilience’s Mahdi Saremifar says simply, “They want to have a centralized system that monitors daily life—lifestyle surveillance.”

The NIN was developed as a core component of the Iranian regime’s mechanisms for control, designed to provide Iran-specific apps, web services, and digital platforms to monitor Iranians constantly and control the information they can access while simultaneously making it much more difficult to get information out of the country to the international community. The NIN has an isolationist architecture that also prevents connections from outside Iran.

The first days of January’s connectivity blackout were so severe, though, that the NIN itself was offline, disrupting government websites and domestic services. Multiple researchers told WIRED that the NIN, landline telephone networks, and even privileged-access SIM cards had no connectivity.

“There’s been a lot of stuff in Iran, but I would say the blackout we’re in now is without precedent in the country,” says Doug Madory, director of internet analysis at monitoring firm Kentik, “And I think it’s arguably one of the biggest communications blackouts in history, not just Iran.”

Filterwatch, a project by internet freedom organization Miaan Group, says that as some connectivity has been restored, including international connections, it believes the Iranian regime is moving to a system of “whitelisting”—restricting internet access to certain organizations and websites or apps. Around the middle of January, the group notes, Iranian state-controlled media published a list of websites available on the NIN, which included Iranian search engines, maps, video services, and messaging apps.

“This architecture utilizes sophisticated service and customer segmentation to transform internet access from a public utility into a government-granted privilege, allowing the state to maintain critical business services while severing the public’s connection to the global web,” Filterwatch explains.

Even as connectivity has been partially restored, researchers emphasize that the volatility of the digital landscape is still striking and leaves open the possibility that the current saga could precipitate permanent disconnection—or splintering—of Iran from the global internet.

For now, analyzing signals from the outside does not make the regime’s intentions clear. “I’m seeing this kind of chaos in the traffic, and I don’t know if that’s the objective—they want chaos—or if this is the system not working correctly,” Kentik’s Madory says. Maybe “they instituted this internet blocking system that is going haywire or maybe they wanted it to go to haywire. I can’t tell, but it’s nuts.”

Connectivity shutdowns, selective blocking, and other digital censorship can be appealing to repressive governments when regimes feel that a situation is getting out of control—both domestically and potentially in terms of optics on the global stage. But as researchers who are focused on Iran and other authoritarian governments have often noted, there are very real limitations of control via digital disconnection.

“When you absolutely disconnect everything, even people who may not want to end up coming to the streets, because they can’t see what’s happening from just sitting in their homes anymore,” another Project Ainita researcher told WIRED. “So in terms of controlling the situation, a bunch of these decisions don’t make any sense.”

As Iranians slowly regain connectivity, though, they face the difficult reality that they are returning to a surveillance dragnet as intrusive and comprehensive as it has ever been.