Do I need to collect Customer's data when they use my WiFi?

[Donalldoz1]

Hi All,

My wife and I are planning on opening a bar restaurant within this year. She says that she read somewhere, some years ago, pre-Covid, that venues offering free WiFi are required by law to collect the personal information of customers using the WiFi, minimum their MAC address. Has anyone any knowledge of this, or had any experience of this regulation being enforced?

TIA.

 

 

[johng]

If its free then there is no way you can gleen personal information...because you are not asking for that information in the first place, I have never come across a free WiFi that required say to sign in with passport,drivers or ID card  well not since many many moons ago.

All you can do is keep logs of the MAC address and sites visited and possibly  CCTV recordings..I know bars and Internet cafes were/are required to have CCTV.. there was a big thing about internet cafes having to require  registration to log in,log every customers activity and not allow kids to pay certain games and not at certain hours  bla bla bla   it was all overtaken by the smart phone  but wouldn't surprise me if the draconian regulations are still in place.

[Photoguy21]

Just one more reason to use a VPN

[Dan O]

Well technically yes. Its listed under the Computer Crimes Act as a requirement but very few do it as its very difficult to do unless you have a locked gateway and issue passwords for "free internet use" where the customer must log in to gain the free access. 

[Etaoin Shrdlu]

This regulation was put in place in 2019.

 

I don't think it has formally been rescinded, but perhaps the perceived need to monitor people's online activity so closely has passed, or authorities are able to collect the necessary identifiers by other means.

 

One large, international coffee shop chain still requires ID/passport and name to log into their free wifi. 

[johng]

17 minutes ago, Etaoin Shrdlu said:

One large, international coffee shop chain still requires ID/passport and name to log into their free wifi. 

Starbucks ???   I'm quite surprised they want that level of surveillance perhaps for marketing use ?

Anyway I went to the Kilo 10 hospital this morning and used their free WiFi  without having to do any captive portal or  log in at all..totally free

(as it should be)   any "free Wifi" that wants my personal details to  access is not free and I would refuse to use it... There was also CCTV  but that is unavoidable I suppose.

[rough diamond]

8 hours ago, Photoguy21 said:

Just one more reason to use a VPN

Or avoid the establishment.

[Dan O]

1 hour ago, johng said:

Starbucks ???   I'm quite surprised they want that level of surveillance perhaps for marketing use ?

Anyway I went to the Kilo 10 hospital this morning and used their free WiFi  without having to do any captive portal or  log in at all..totally free

(as it should be)   any "free Wifi" that wants my personal details to  access is not free and I would refuse to use it... There was also CCTV  but that is unavoidable I suppose.

There are POS systems you can buy that integrate with WiFi and issue passwords to the customer with a limit on time in use. No need to provide your personal data,  just the password. 

[johng]

17 minutes ago, Dan O said:

There are POS systems you can buy

 

Yes there are but seeing as I was on a shoe string budget we just recorded   start and stop time on a paper notepad  and shouted out to customers  "come in boat number 2 your time is up"..

and then the government regulations came in and shop oppened right next door spending millions with all the required "stuff"

 

Wasn't long before we were "stuffed"

[Dan O]

1 hour ago, johng said:

 

Yes there are but seeing as I was on a shoe string budget we just recorded   start and stop time on a paper notepad  and shouted out to customers  "come in boat number 2 your time is up"..

and then the government regulations came in and shop oppened right next door spending millions with all the required "stuff"

 

Wasn't long before we were "stuffed"

Well that's a chance you take when you're in business. Either you're properly funded or you're not. The other shops are always going to compete, and they have an advantage here.  Thai's tend to do that. If there's a shop selling something in short order there will be 3 more within eyesight selling the exact same thing.

[johng]

15 hours ago, Dan O said:

Well that's a chance you take when you're in business. Either you're properly funded or you're not

 

I took some small amount of Schadenfreude  seeing the next door business also fail quite quickly   I suppose due to the advent of cheap internet and the rise of the cell phone  and possibly his very high overheads

( well comparatively high)

[PomPolo]

I have just been playing about with this myself from a hobby perspective, a Raspberry Pi a few free bits of software with an Ethernet connection to your router.
Should be able to get a terms agreement page (login if you want) log all clients including mac addresses/session times and duration etc, and a nice GUI to view all the audit to see if anyone is taking the pee out of your free WiFi and meet any regulatory requirements (if there are any)

 

I set mine up from the below tech stack I got off ChatGPT, I can PM you the full setup instructions if you want to use it, bit of a pain to set up and have to know a little bit about what you are doing.

Best Software Stack

✅ 1. CoovaChilli + FreeRADIUS + a Captive Portal

This is the most robust, open-source setup for what you want:

Component	Purpose
CoovaChilli	Captive portal software that intercepts traffic
FreeRADIUS	Authenticates and logs clients (optional login)
MySQL	Stores user sessions and logs
phpMyAdmin	(Optional) View logs via web interface
Custom Portal Page	Terms of Use and Accept button

---

🧰 How It Works

1. Raspberry Pi runs hostapd to create the Wi-Fi hotspot.

2. CoovaChilli captures all traffic until the user accepts the Terms.

3. CoovaChilli redirects to a web page (portal) served locally.

4. After accepting, users are allowed online.

5. CoovaChilli logs the user’s MAC address, IP, session start/end time, and data usage into the RADIUS backend.

[Dan O]

4 hours ago, johng said:

 

I took some small amount of Schadenfreude  seeing the next door business also fail quite quickly   I suppose due to the advent of cheap internet and the rise of the cell phone  and possibly his very high overheads

( well comparatively high)

Yes coming into market you really don't have the best knowledge and understand how to operate is dangerous no matter how much money you throw at it.