Law banning wifi in public places. Proposed fines for organizing public Wi-Fi networks without user identification

08/21/2014 | 13:21 Society

Laws are different. Good and bad. There is only one thing they are always similar to: the laws cease to be correct over time.

It was difficult to foresee that the first appeals to me as an Internet ombudsman would come not from specialized market participants, but from ordinary owners small restaurants and a cafe. Of course, no one has yet managed to offend them, and the appeal itself is more like a silent question hanging in the air: “What should we do now?”

So, is it possible or not to provide restaurant guests with free Wi-Fi, and do they need to ask for a passport?

Unfortunately, all possible comments and clarifications, as well as decisions, did not bring clarity. And, of course, any subsequent ones will not be included either. Which there certainly will be.

Therefore, my answer is extremely simple: it is necessary to take and cancel Resolution No. 758 of July 31, 2014.

Now allow me a lyrical digression...
Ordinary cafe. Which is connected to the Internet under an agreement - say, with the operator RosTeleBiMTS. The latter uniquely identified its subscriber as Cafe LLC. Cafe LLC uses the Internet for its own needs. And in between, he also sends tax reports through the latter. Realizing the fact that during a business lunch in a nearby cafe there were visitors, but they did not, the cafe management found out the reason. There is free Wi-Fi in the nearby cafe!! And it turns out that this circumstance attracts whole shoals of office plankton to lunch, who continue to work during lunch, which ultimately generates huge revenue for the competitor. Rapid mobilization - general manager gave the order to eliminate competitive inequality. And in our cafe there is a router that distributes free Wi-Fi. Life has improved. Revenue went up. Clients are happy. Business is going well. And then, like a bolt from the blue, Resolution No. 758! What to do? Turn off the Internet - lose customers. Not turning it off is breaking the law. So does the cafe break the law or not? The answer is paradoxical. But that’s exactly it: yes and no. It seems like it was in violation before the resolution, but it seems like it wasn’t. And in the future it seems like it will violate, but it seems like it won’t.

And now on your fingers. The cafe is connected to the Internet on the basis of a subscription agreement with a telecom operator. Cafe telematic services does not provide services to anyone (it does not have a license for telematics, and is not registered as a communication center), since it only provides the guest with the opportunity to use their Internet connection. The situation is very similar to the one when you plug your charger into the electrical outlet of this very cafe and consume electricity under the agreement between Cafe LLC and Mosenergo, and not under the agreement between you and Cafe LLC.

In this situation, our provider RosTeleBiMTS cannot and should not identify the user. Since he should carry out this procedure only if he distributes Wi-Fi himself. Here he has only one subscriber, and this subscriber is Cafe LLC. The cafe also does not have to identify anyone and is not required to ask for a passport, since it does not provide telematic services and is not a telecom operator. But! According to the same resolution, Cafe LLC is obliged to transmit a list of people using its Internet, certified by the director of the cafe, once a quarter. And here a rebus happened. Naturally, the director will provide relevant information every quarter staffing table, or more simply, a list of cafe employees who regularly use open point Wi-Fi access in the restaurant. Since Cafe LLC is not obliged, unlike a telecom operator, to provide a list of identified client equipment, Cafe LLC provides free access on the Internet for its clients is absolutely legal.

Conclusion: restaurants and cafes can continue to delight us free Wi-Fi access.
But access to the Internet in the park is provided for us by a telecom operator, so we can receive it only after sending an SMS message or entering our EPGU credentials. You couldn't imagine a better situation for scammers! That there will be a hacking of an account on Twitter and mail after the account of the park of culture and recreation is teeming with logins and passwords.

And a little more. The desire to identify a person logging onto the Internet is absurd in itself without identifying the device. Identifying a device that has connected to a network is meaningless without applying common sense to the traffic generated by that device.
To achieve at least some effect, you need to build an ecosystem electronic registration every person on the territory of the Russian Federation, namely a person (citizen and tourist), every device of this person that can connect to the Internet (in the near future, these will be all household appliances and personal gadgets), and the mandatory establishment of a relationship between a person and a list of devices.
I really want this kind of “laws and regulations” to be adopted not from the point of view of today, but from the point of view of tomorrow. Otherwise, business in our cafe will shrink...

And we also need to think about our cafe. Not long ago, visitors were banned from smoking in cafes. And now all the clients are running outside. It’s impossible to say for sure whether it’s good or bad that smoking has been banned. There are advantages. There are downsides. It became easier to breathe in the cafe. It's more comfortable indoors. Plus. The guest runs outside. Might get sick. Minus. The nymph “treat me to a cigarette” quickly runs along with the guest, who, before the law was adopted, was bored for a long time over a cup of coffee all evening, being in a passive search - is this a plus or a minus? It's up to you to decide. 😉 But I’m wondering: when the law was introduced, were the authors pro-health or pro-illness of citizens? For marriage, family or divorce? Such good law, but the time will come, and even it may cease to be correct. What can we say about the laws regulating the Internet? You need to think. Thinking about tomorrow when we try to regulate the Internet. This is what prompts me to write at the end: like it if you are for the abolition of the resolution!

Moscow, July 21, 2015.— The Federal Portal of Draft Regulatory Legal Acts prepared by the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Media has been published Russian Federation bill on amendments to the Federal Law “On Communications” and the RF Code on administrative offenses(Administrative Code), which are proposed to establish liability for legal entities and individual entrepreneurs for organizing public Wi-Fi networks that do not provide identification of users and user equipment. According to the document, fines for individual entrepreneurs should range from five thousand to fifty thousand rubles, for legal entities - from one hundred thousand to two hundred thousand rubles. Repeated violation of the law by individual entrepreneurs will be punishable by a fine of ten thousand to one hundred thousand rubles or disqualification for up to three years, by legal entities - a fine of two hundred thousand to three hundred thousand rubles.

The bill, which the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications of Russia is developing jointly with the FSB of Russia, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia and the Ministry of Economic Development of Russia, proposes to oblige legal entities and individual entrepreneurs to provide free Internet access in public places only if there is an agreement with the telecom operator on user identification. It is proposed to establish administrative liability for violation of the identification procedure, starting from the first quarter of 2016.

The decision to develop a regulatory legal act was adopted following a discussion at the Government Communications Commission, which took place on May 27, 2015, chaired by Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Arkady Dvorkovich. Let us recall that speaking at the meeting, the head of the Russian Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications, Nikolai Nikiforov, noted that the organizers of a significant number of public Wi-Fi networks still have not introduced mandatory user identification. He also noted the need to establish in the Code of Administrative Offenses the responsibility of legal entities and private entrepreneurs for non-compliance with Russian legislation.

Let us recall that changes to the Federal Law “On Communications” regarding the identification of users of public Wi-Fi networks were adopted in pursuance of Law No. 97-FZ of May 5, 2014 “On Amendments to the Federal Law “On Information, information technology and on information protection” and separate legislative acts Russian Federation on issues of streamlining the exchange of information using information and telecommunication networks." The bill was prepared by a group of deputies of the State Duma of the Russian Federation led by the chairman of the State Duma Committee on Security and Anti-Corruption Irina Yarova and submitted in January 2014 to the State Duma as part of a package of bills tightening measures against terrorism. It is consistent with accepted international practice.

Decrees of the Government of the Russian Federation No. 758 of July 31, 2014 and No. 801 of August 12, 2014 expanded the possibilities for identifying subscribers of communication networks, including public Wi-Fi networks. As a result of the adoption of these resolutions, operators were able to use for identification not only a passport, number mobile phone user, but also to identify him using data Unified system identification and authentication (USIA) or using the login and password from the Unified Public Services Portal. Thus, from July 13, 2015, a connection using a login and password from the Unified Public Services Portal to the Wi-Fi network on the Zamoskvoretskaya and Sokolnicheskaya lines of the Moscow metro began working.

Administrations of public places (cafes, libraries, schools, parks, etc.), where they allow visitors to connect to Wi-Fi, are required to identify their users, otherwise they will face a fine of up to 200 thousand rubles. This provision is contained in the bill prepared by the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications.

Currently, a corresponding bill has been prepared and is undergoing the approval procedure,” the press service of the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications said.

The bill stipulates that the provision of Internet access in public places by legal entities or individual entrepreneurs is allowed only on the condition that an agreement is concluded between them and telecom operators on the identification of users and the equipment they use - phones, tablets, laptops, etc.

Telecom operators were required to identify users and the equipment they use when providing one-time data transfer services at public access points (for example, in public Wi-Fi networks) by two Russian government resolutions: dated July 31, 2014 and August 12, 2014, which introduced changes to the “Rules for the provision of communication services for data transmission”. The user's identity is established either using a document (for example, a passport) or a number cellular communications(in Russia the contract is with mobile operator concluded with the presentation of a document), or through a login on the public services portal.

The current law provides for liability for lack of user identification only for a telecom operator who does not comply with the new rules. For this, the operator faces a fine of 30–40 thousand. Liability for owners of cafes, libraries, schools, institutes, parks, etc. was not previously provided. The Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications decided to eliminate this gap in the legislation. His bill proposes to supplement the Code of Administrative Responsibility (CAO) Art. 13.32, which imposes a fine on the administration of legal entities and individual entrepreneurs for “violation of the procedure for identifying users of communication services for data transmission and providing access to the Internet information and telecommunications network and the terminal equipment they use” for officials from 5 thousand to 10 thousand rubles , for legal entities - from 100 thousand to 200 thousand rubles. In case of repeated violation, the fine will be 300 thousand.

According to TMT Consalting, in Russia 73% (about 50 thousand) of points wireless access Internet access (hotspots) in public places was organized by telecom operators themselves and 27% (18 thousand) by the owners of public places.

The owner of a small Moscow cafe said that unknown citizens had already come to them and demanded that they be paid 1.5 thousand rubles, otherwise they would complain to the supervisory authorities and tell them that in their cafe, when accessing the Network via Wi-Fi, user identification occurs. The interlocutor also noted that it would be easier for them to have an individual distribute Wi-Fi in their cafe, for example, this could be done by a neighbor upstairs: individuals are not required by law to identify Wi-Fi users.

And amendments to federal law“On Communications” and the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation (COAP), which will allow legal entities and individual entrepreneurs to be fined for failure to identify users of their public Wi-Fi networks. About this reported on the official website of the ministry.

For the provision of anonymous Wi-Fi it is planned to charge a fine of 5 thousand to 50 thousand rubles. from individual entrepreneurs and from 100 thousand to 200 thousand rubles. from legal entities.

Repeated violation of the law will cost individual entrepreneurs already 10-100 thousand rubles. or disqualification for up to three years, and the legal entity will pay up to 300 thousand rubles.

It is planned to establish administrative liability for such offenses from the first quarter of 2016.

At the same time, government decree No. 758 on access to the public Internet using an ID card came into force last summer. According to the document, the telecom operator, before allowing access to the Internet, is required to enter a mobile phone number to which a code is sent to confirm data.

The Wi-Fi network operator of the Moscow metro, Maxima Telecom, was the first to comply with the requirements of the resolution; at the end of February 2015, it launched a procedure for mandatory authorization of users via a mobile number.

As of May 2015, the registered subscriber base of this network numbered approximately 4.5 million people.

However, not everyone followed the example of Maxima. Which caused concern to the Minister of Communications. At a May meeting of the government communications commission, he noted that some public Wi-Fi access points still did not provide user identification. “Visitors of the largest cafe chain in Russia fast food still use public access to the Internet without registration,” the minister complained.

At the same time, Nikiforov first voiced the idea that entrepreneurs and legal entities should be responsible for identifying users.

However, McDonald’s, the “largest cafe chain in Russia” mentioned by the minister, decided not to wait for changes in legislation and independently introduced authorization for its Wi-Fi in all of its Russian restaurants.

There is nothing negative in the very idea of ​​combating anonymous access to the Internet in public places, says the head of the board (IRI). Especially if the issue is resolved using a simplified identification procedure using a mobile phone number, he told Gazeta.Ru.

Klimenko also noted that there should not be any particular difficulties in implementing the law, and the entrepreneurs themselves will not incur significant costs.

A representative of one of the Wi-Fi providers for a number of Moscow restaurants and public places also agrees with the head of the IRI board. According to him, equipping one Wi-Fi point with a mandatory identification mechanism will cost a maximum of 10 thousand rubles.

Another source in the Internet provider market told Gazeta.Ru that in Russia today there are more than 100 thousand public Wi-Fi points and the majority of their owners will prefer to comply with the requirements of the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications.

At the same time, the source doubted the effectiveness of identifying users through a mobile number due to the abundance of illegal SIM cards on the market. “Today you can buy a SIM card without a passport almost everywhere, which makes all authorization measures pointless,” he concluded.

Nowadays, Wi-Fi networks cover most of the territory of cities: all public places, shopping centers, and establishments have their own access points. Free Internet is available in subway cars and even airplanes.

However, the increasing use of open networks Internet for illegal purposes (fraudulent, corrupt), the growth of terrorist activity in the world and other factors were a prerequisite for the creation of a law on the procedure for providing access to wi-fi in public places.

Basic provisions

For the first time in Europe, a similar law was adopted in Italy, which existed until 2013. In Russia, people started talking about “Wi-Fi with a passport” in 2014. Small establishments began to gradually abandon the provision of free wireless Internet access to visitors.

Check out latest changes in law No. 152. Details

On May 5, 2014, Russia adopted Law N97-FZ, the provisions of which were reduced to streamlining the exchange of information using information and telecommunication networks (the Internet). Based on its provisions, amendments were made to many regulations in the field of communications and communications:

• Federal Law No. 149 “On information, information technologies and information protection”;
• Law N 152-FZ “On Personal Data”, etc.

Changes to the law on providing access to wi-fi in public places were developed by the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications together with several departments: the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the FSB, the Ministry of Economic Development.

Read more about the law on the FSB in the article

Later, the Government of the Russian Federation approved a number of resolutions, including a set of measures for the practical implementation of the provisions of the law on providing access to free internet in public places.

Procedure for authorization in public Wi-Fi networks

According to the text of Government Resolution No. 758 of July 31, 2014 and No. 801 of August 12 of the same year, which expanded the previous possibilities for identifying subscribers when gaining access to wi-fi networks in public places, as well as subsequent clarifications of the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications, identification of users of public wi networks -fi can currently be implemented as follows:

• According to a document containing personal data of a person, i.e. identification (passport, driver's license);
• By mobile phone number;

Additionally:

• Using ESIA (Unified Identification and Authentication System) data;
• Via login and password account on the portal public services RF.

Services for identifying users of free Internet points wi-fi access offices, establishments, shops, etc. are provided by providers and IT companies. Within the framework of large-scale restaurant chains, large infrastructure facilities (metropolitan), etc., registration must be completed once, after which the person’s personal data and device information are stored in the operator’s database, and access is provided using the previously issued login and password.

Responsibility for providing access to Wi-Fi without identification

For a long time after the adoption of the amendment, there were no penalties in the legislation for violating the rules for identifying users of free public Wi-Fi networks. Also, questions about who is responsible—on Internet providers or the establishments themselves—were not clarified.

Within the executive departments themselves, disagreements also arose regarding who and how will monitor compliance with the provisions of the new law. For this reason, restaurant owners and retail outlets They were in no hurry to comply with the introduced standards, leaving open access to free Internet for their clients.

Only in July 2016, Federal Law No. 374 amended Article 13.30 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation on failure to comply with legal requirements by a person acting on behalf of the operator (establishment owners, administration shopping centers etc.) or by the operator itself in terms of identifying subscribers for access to the Internet.

A person who violates the requirement to organize a user identification system for a wi-fi network faces an administrative fine in the amount of:

• From 2 to 5 thousand rubles for citizens;
• From 5 to 50 - for officials;
• From 100 to 200 thousand rubles. - for organizations and companies.

Repeated violation ban on providing free access to wi-fi networks without authentication will result in more severe administrative penalties:

• Fine from 10 to 100 thousand rubles or suspension from entrepreneurial activity for a period of up to 3 years - for individual entrepreneurs;
• Fine from 200 to 300 thousand rubles. - for legal entities.

Download the law on the use of Wi-Fi

Even as the innovations came into force, many large operators stated that the requirements introduced into the law were unnecessary. By that time, market giants had long been using a system for identifying users of free wireless Internet by phone number and without concluding a special agreement with legal entities.

According to Roskomnadzor as of August 3, 2017, violations related to the lack of a wi-fi user identification system were found in 10% of wireless Internet access points in public places in the first half of the year. For comparison, in 2015 the law was violated in 90% of cases. As the department notes, “the results indicate a significant increase in discipline on the part of network organizers.”

“On amendments to the Federal Law on information, information technologies and on the protection of information and certain legislative acts of the Russian Federation on the issues of streamlining the exchange of information using information and telecommunication networks.”