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Recital 13

Public and private communications networks

(13) The development of fast and efficient wireless technologies has fostered the increasing availability for the public of internet access via wireless networks accessible by anyone in public and semi-private spaces such as ‘hotspots’ situated at different places within a city, department stores, shopping malls and hospitals. To the extent that those communications networks are provided to an undefined group of end-users, regardless if these networks are secured with passwords or not, the confidentiality of the communications transmitted through such networks should be protected. The fact that wireless electronic communications services may be ancillary to other services should not stand in the way of ensuring the protection of confidentiality of communications data and application of this Regulation. Therefore, this Regulation should apply to electronic communications data using electronic communications services and public communications networks. In contrast, this Regulation should not apply to closed groups of end-users such as corporate networks, access to which is limited pre-defined group of end-users, e.g. to members of the corporation. Therefore, only networks proving access to a group of end-users which is not pre-defined and where end-users get access to the network under the same conditions, e.g. wifi network of a department store open to all customers, are regulated by this Regulation.