Free Wi-Fi in a bar or cafe is now commonplace, and customers are grateful for this service, especially foreigners when roaming. In many establishments, visitors are simply given the name of the access point and password, without bothering themselves with identifying users and keeping a log of activity. But it turned out that this is impossible. According to the French newspaper Les Dernières Nouvelles d'Alsace, at least five managers of bars and restaurants in Grenoble have been detained by the police.
These bars did not comply with a little-known law from 2006, which obliges to keep activity logs of all customers who connected to Wi-Fi for one year.
We are talking about the law No. 2006-64 of January 23, 2006 on certain measures to combat terrorism. He extended the obligation to store logs, established for Internet providers, "to all persons who, in terms of primary or secondary professional activity, offer the public an online communication service, including free of charge."
At the same time, the Digital Economy Trust Act of June 21, 2004 (known as LCEN) obliges Internet service providers to store data "so that all users of the service they provide can be identified." For the purposes of monitoring and investigating criminal offenses, as well as for the purpose of providing information to the judicial authorities, the following information should be stored:
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Faced with this text, the bar owner has two options. Either he turns to a third party that will collect and store this data for transmission to the police in the event of an investigation, or he does it himself. But in this case, it will be considered an access provider with the same responsibilities as commercial ISPs.
The problem is that until now Law No. 2006-64 was little known and often not enforced in France. One of the managers arrested in Grenoble told the newspaper in a commentary: "Nobody, not even the professionals of l'Umih (the trade union) who provide compulsory training under the renewal of the license, have ever said that I should keep this data."
In France, there are indeed professional Wi-Fi network operators who provide services of this kind in compliance with all standards, allowing you to identify end customers, collect IP addresses, and keep logs. They also work in hotels, convention centers, etc. But these subscriptions are expensive, so the owners of small bars just put up the router without bothering with formalities.
Although police raids on free Wi-Fi in bars are rare in France, the current events may intimidate many. Moreover, the law provides for a severe punishment: "Any violation of data storage rules provides for a punishment of up to one year in prison and a fine of up to 75 thousand euros for individuals and 375 thousand euros for legal entities."
I must say that in Russia there are similar rules for mandatory identification of subscribers. Government Decree No. 758 , which came into force on August 13, 2014, obliged the owners of public institutions that provide free Wi-Fi access to identify users. According to the resolution and clarifications of the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications, identification can be performed in three ways: by an identity document (for example, a passport), a mobile phone number or an account on the State Services website.
Interestingly, France adopted the law back in 2006, but until now very few people knew about it, and the police did not punish for violation.
In fact, in a legally developed society there are so many laws, bylaws and regulations thatvirtually every citizen is a criminal , whether he knows it or not. The regulatory framework is too extensive, and the norms are sometimes contradictory, impracticable or little known.