Iran’s Chilling Crackdown Turns Citizens Into Informants Abroad

Iran has introduced a reporting network that encourages people to submit information about Iranians living overseas, creating what critics describe as a crowdsourced surveillance effort targeting the diaspora. The initiative operates through a dedicated website and messaging services, including Telegram, according to Iranian media reports and an Iranian official who confirmed the program to News Media.

Called Alaj—a Persian word meaning “remedy” or “cure”—the platform asks users to identify people abroad whom it alleges are working against Iran’s national interests or security. Iran International reported that submissions could be made through the Alaj website, a Telegram bot and Iran’s Bale messaging app. Iranian state television and Fars News Agency, which is affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, also publicized the effort, according to the outlet.

An Iranian official source told News Media that Alaj and its Telegram chatbot were created to give selected individuals a way to report alleged information about Iranians residing outside the country. The official said the website was later removed after facing widespread criticism within Iran.

The site disappeared soon after its public launch, though reports have offered differing explanations for why the platform was suspended.

Iran International said Alaj claimed to have located and tracked 1,600 individuals, including approximately 600 people identified through tips from the public. Those figures have not been independently confirmed. The outlet also reported that the platform displayed names and images of Iranians abroad, and in certain cases included national identification numbers, birth dates and fathers’ names.

Lisa Daftari, an Iranian American journalist and foreign policy analyst, said the most significant concern is not only the collection of personal information but the attempt to turn ordinary Iranians into informants against one another.

“Even if it’s just the perception that other Iranians can report you or can get you in trouble or that this app exists, it makes a lot of people fearful,” Daftari told News Media. “You’ll think twice before going to that next protest.”

According to Daftari, the threat feels especially personal for diaspora members who have family members still living in Iran.

“Now your face could be captured, you can get in trouble,” she said. “If you have family in Iran, they can get into trouble.”

Daftari characterized Alaj as a digital version of a longstanding method of intimidation. She said Iran’s clerical leadership has spent decades fostering anxiety over whether neighbors, coworkers or acquaintances might pass information to authorities.

“Now the regime wants to take this show on the road and do that here, here in the West,” Daftari said. “They want to intimidate people. And it works.”

Daftari said she has personally faced harassment and intimidation for years. “I’ve been followed, I’ve been hacked multiple times, I have been approached in person in LA, in New York, even at the airport,” she told News Media.

After a serious hacking episode gave attackers access to her social media profiles and both personal and professional email accounts, Daftari said her local FBI office contacted her and she began cooperating closely with federal agents.

She said the hackers also took private vacation photographs of her wearing a bikini and sent them to her husband. “The message they want to send is very clear, that we know where you are, we can reach you,” she said. “And obviously the point is to intimidate and silence those who speak out, who report, who speak the truth and talk about all the crimes of this regime.”

Daftari said the chilling effect reaches far beyond high-profile reporters and political activists. Years earlier, while recording at a Los Angeles café where Iranian Americans had gathered to watch a World Cup match, she recalled seeing people turn away or cover their faces because they feared the footage could make its way to Iran and put relatives at risk.

That kind of self-protection, she said, helps explain how a system like Alaj can influence behavior even when people have no way of knowing whether anyone has actually reported them.

The threat has also changed Daftari’s own behavior.

She recalled being unable to stop thinking about security when the location of her father’s memorial service had to be announced publicly after his death. Daftari said she routinely considers where she parks, what details she shares online and security vulnerabilities at places she visits. “It does silence a lot of people, and it does change the freedom by which we think we can operate here in the United States, where we believe we have full freedom,” Daftari said.

“Their intimidation works,” she added. “It works to a certain extent on each individual.”

Daftari said the broader campaign should also shape how Americans understand the confrontation with Tehran, arguing that the threat extends beyond Iran’s nuclear program.

“It’s not just about nuclear weapons, it’s about a deadly ideology that has made its way here to U.S. soil,” she said. “We have to understand that.”