Sounds like this law makes it much easier to frame people than planting drugs and calling the cops. /s

I haven't been to France in a while. Is this actually enforced in any meaningful way? Like, you can't go to Starbucks or a shopping center and use their wifi without some kind of identity verification? How does that practically work?

It's fairly simple; there is a captive portal where you have to enter your phone number, phone number that ends up being validated by sms.

and yes its actually surprinsingly enforced. I remember reading an article a few months ago where café's owners had to pay hefty fines for not implementing those "safety" measures.

>>> Depending where you are, its illegal. For example in France, if you dont keep a register of whoever used your wi-fi, you are in breach of anti-terrorist norms.

> It's fairly simple; there is a captive portal where you have to enter your phone number, phone number that ends up being validated by sms.

They have similar requirements in China, and they do exactly the same thing there.

What about people who don't own a phone?

The worldwide cell phone penetration rate is 91%

https://www.bankmycell.com/blog/how-many-phones-are-in-the-w...

It’s not a money maker for them, I doubt they care.

More government pressure to require you to carry a tracking device.

Yes because without government pressure the 92% of the worlds population wouldn’t have cell phones.

Carrot then stick.

Usually, captive portals make you enter your name and your email address. Many times, you can just put garbage, click ok and you have your internet access. There's no email verification in many places.

Some wifi access points (like the ones from cities) make you create an account though.

How would you verify your email address while you're trying to get wifi access if you don't have wifi access?

Yes.

(more seriously, they could make it very annoying until you verify, like let you connect for a few minutes only, or at very low speed. Still, yes, and I guess this is a major reason why they don't make people verify their email address)

I imagine they just use their super cheap cellular data plans.

Yes. However, at some places, like inside some buildings, you have a good wifi but very bad mobile network reception.

In high speed trains the wifi might also be stabler than your phone because the system behind the wifi is designed to work with the high speed you are moving at.

My experience with train wifi is that the wifi signal is great but beyond the portal nothing else works.

I regularly take the train. I've had good experiences most of the times, and catastrophic experiences some of the times. It depends on the location, also. Some lines are better served.

This is not something you can rely on however. Take it as a bonus if it works.

Funny, anti-terrorism to track everyone using wifi, yet known subjects have done repeated attacks all without using wifi.