Iraq orders national internet blackout to stop students cheating in exams

For the second year in a row the country has seen national internet outages

The Iraqi government is so worried about students cheating in exams, it has ordered internet blackouts (Getty)

The Iraqi government has been periodically shutting down the entire country’s internet in what is believed to be an effort to stop students from cheating in exams.

Iraq has now seen three complete internet outages in three days, each lasting three hours.

It is the second year in a row the government has reportedly ordered Iraqi telecom companies to shut down the internet, with the timing coinciding with final exams for the country’s sixth grade students.

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Internet analytics firm Dyn Research, which tracked the internet blackouts, said the outages included complete national blackouts between 5am and 8am from 14 – 16 May, and mirror those recorded last year.

Doug Madory, Dyn’s internet analysis director, told tech website Vocativ: “There was certainly a lot of scepticism about this explanation last summer, but the outages did coincide with exams, and nothing emerged to dispute the explanation.”

A leaked email obtained by SMEX, a Lebanon-based tech and human-rights group, gave some warning of the planned outages and indicated the decision had come from the Iraqi government.

The leaked memo reads: “As per the Ministry of Communications and ITPC [Iraqi Telecommunications and Post Company] instructions, please be informed that all the Circuits will be shut down tomorrow 15-5-2016 by the ITPC in the period from 5:00AM to 8:00AM. During this time all the Internet connectivity will be turned off in all regions of Iraq.”

Digital-rights groups who campaigned for the Iraqi government to lift the internet block last year have expressed frustration at the latest round of blackouts.

“Now, unfortunately, it’s the same story all over again,” said Deji Olukotun, the senior global advocacy manager at Access Now, one of the groups that petitioned the government to lift the internet blackout last year.

“Given the security situation in Iraq, it’s quite an extreme measure,” Olukotun told The Atlantic. “We see this as really disproportionate to what they’re trying to achieve.”