The Deputy Minister of Tourism claims that the Tourist SIM Card plan without filtering has been approved by the Filtering Committee and is being implemented step by step.
According to IDEA, The Unfiltered Tourist SIM Card Plan has been approved by the National Prosecutor’s Office’s Committee for Removing Criminal Content. This was announced by Ali-Asghar Shalbafian, the Deputy Minister of Tourism, who stated that their request for these SIM cards is aimed at travel agencies, hotels, tour guides, and foreign tourists.
Ali-Asghar Shalbafian explained that the provision of unfiltered SIM cards to foreign tourists has been pursued in accordance with the directives of the Minister of Tourism, Ezzatollah Zarghami.
According to him, the ‘Tourist SIM Card’ plan has been approved by the Committee for Removing Criminal Content of the National Prosecutor’s Office: “A meeting was also held among the ministries of cultural heritage, tourism and handicrafts, communications, the prosecutor’s office, and law enforcement agencies to discuss how to implement it based on our requested priorities.”
Shalbafian announced that travel agencies, hotels, tour guides, and foreign tourists should be able to use the Tourist SIM Card. He said,” We had requested that tourism professionals be prioritized in this plan, so we provided a list of travel service offices to make this opportunity available to them. Approved agencies with licenses from the Ministry of Cultural Heritage, Tourism, and Handicrafts have been introduced for the implementation of this plan.”
He also stated that in another phase of this plan, foreign tourists will have the opportunity to use these SIM cards, and consent has been granted for it. This comes as tourists, if possible, can access unfiltered internet by roaming with one of the domestic operators using their own SIM cards.
According to the Deputy Minister of Tourism, this plan, with a priority of supporting tourism professionals, will be implemented step by step: “This plan has been approved and notified, and in accordance with the plan and priorities, we will introduce the operators. The timing for the phased implementation of this plan will be determined in the future.”
This development occurred a month ago, the Director of Responsiveness at the Ministry of Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts, and Tourism, regarding the Tourist SIM card, stated that this matter had only been proposed and no official correspondence, guidelines, or meeting minutes had been prepared.
He also promised that as soon as the matter of the Tourist SIM card is finalized, it will be announced on the ministry’s website and system. It should be noted that no content has been published on this matter if you visit the Ministry of Tourism’s website.
It’s worth mentioning that the Filtering Committee is separately addressing the issue of tiered internet access. The Ministry of Science announced last year that, according to the committee’s approval, internet with special access will be provided to university faculty members.
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