The communications Ministry has developed a bill providing penalties for organisers of public Wi-Fi networks, which can connect to without user authentication. This is stated in the press release of the Ministry.
From the document follows that the fines for violations of user identification for individual entrepreneurs will be from 5 to 50 thousand rubles, the repeated violation of the law provides the penalty from 10 to 100 thousand rubles or disqualification for up to three years. For legal entities the penalty will be from 100 to 200 thousand rubles, and from 200 to 300 thousand rubles for repeated violation of the requirements of the law.
The Minister noted that the amendments were developed in conjunction with the FSB, the interior Ministry and the Ministry of economic development. It is assumed that the free Internet access in public areas will be granted only if the contract with the service provider about the user’s identity. For violation of the order identification is proposed to establish administrative responsibility, starting from the first quarter of 2016.
At the end of may the Minister of communications and mass media Nikolay Nikiforov, criticized the network some owners of public Wi-Fi hotspots. The Minister noted that they did not provide the mandatory identification of users, which is required by Russian legislation.
“Despite the fact that there are a lot of ways, not all public access points to the Internet has complied with the requirements of Russian legislation,” Nikiforov said, adding that visitors of Russia’s largest network of fast food outlets (SLA about McDonald’s restaurants) continue to enjoy public access to the Internet, without registration.
A month later, the media learned that the McDonald’s will be introduced identifying users free Wi-Fi in all their 505 Russian institutions.
A ban on anonymous use of public networks was introduced by government decree in August 2014. Later the Ministry of communications has issued a clarifying document that lists the possible ways of identifying users. The main one was the mobile phone number.
