Abolhassan Firouzabadi made the remarks on Sunday on the sideline of an IT-related project inauguration ceremony in Tehran.

According to a regulation passed by the Supreme Council of Cyberspace, every foreign-based messaging app which has more than one million users in the country should have a representative here, he highlighted.

“In this regulation, the definition of messengers includes social media platforms; so the social media of Instagram should have a responsive representative in the country and also it should not take out the information of Iranian users.”

The same kind of laws also exists in Europe and messaging apps cannot take out the information of European people from the continent, and based on this fact, foreign messaging apps should not be allowed to export information from Iran, he added.

Rumors about blocking Instagram in Iran went around when Iran’s deputy attorney general Mohammad Mosaddegh said in early July that this measure is on the agenda. Shortly after, Iran’s ICT Minister Azari Jahromi highlighted that Instagram will not be blocked.

Iran’s judiciary issued an order in late April to completely ban Telegram app, citing citizens’ complaints and illegal activities of the Telegram against the country’s national security.