Iran’s head of security forces says Google is not a search engine so much as a tool for espionage.

Brigadier General Ahmadi Moghaddam, the head of Iranian security forces, told ILNA on Tuesday: “Google is not a search engine; it is a tool for spying.”

He added: “When we search our desired information on the World Wide Web, we leave a trace of our personal information.”

Ahmadi Moghaddam went on to say: “The source of our computer information should not be outside the country. We can have the source here inside the country. Our connections should be made to secure places to avoid subversive action.”

Iranian authorities regard the internet as a tool of the so-called “soft war” they say is being waged against the Islamic Republic by foreign powers. Therefore, they are working toward establishing a kind of domestic internet to cut off public access to the World Wide Web.

Ahmadi Moghaddam said: “A national internet can be very effective to protect the country’s information and the people’s security.”

Iran’s Ministry of Communications and Technology has said it will launch a national internet in the next few months. The domestic internet, which will work as a kind of intranet, is supposed to be “clean” from “immoral” sites.