He made the remarks in an expert-level meeting on Monday, saying “We agree that different accessibility levels should be defined for different types of internet for users and for this purpose, we have tasked the Working Group to come up with a specific guideline regarding internet accessibility."

“We are hoping that this plan will be come on stream soon," he added.

Turning to the issue of legal, government-approved VPNs, he said, “this issue had been put forward a few years ago, but it come to nothing. Since many organizations and people use VPN, and it has grown into quite a lucrative economy, we are hoping that legal VPN operators will be launched in the country in cooperation with the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (ICT).”

That is to say that the VPNs will be delegated according to predefined rules and regulations through official operators, he stressed.

Iranian Parliament Research Center (IPRC) is responsible for launching this plan; as such, it will be raised at Parliament’s plenary session for final approval, Firouzabadi added.