Sharing your wifi connection is a common but risky practice. In the eyes of the law, this can have serious consequences for the subscription holder, up to and including legal action.
Who has never given their wifi code to a passing friend or neighbor? After all, it has a good intention. However, as trivial as it may seem, sharing your Internet connection is far from safe, whether you are an individual or a professional.
Indeed, in the eyes of the law, the holder of the Internet subscription is responsible when he shares his access. If someone uses your wifi to visit illegal sites or download copyrighted content, you will be held responsible. You then risk legal action and heavy fines.
Let’s take a concrete example to measure the extent of the risks. Let’s imagine that you share your wifi with a neighbor and that the latter uses it to pirate films and series protected by copyright. In the eyes of the law, it is your IP address that will be identified and therefore you who will be considered responsible for this offense. You then risk up to 3 years in prison and a fine of 300,000 euros for counterfeiting, not including the damages claimed by the rights holders. A simple favor can therefore turn into a legal and financial nightmare.
In addition, the general conditions of internet service providers strictly prohibit connection sharing. You therefore also expose yourself to a breach of contract and penalties.
Beyond these legal aspects, giving your wifi code amounts to opening the doors to your local network. A malicious individual could access your computers, your shared files, your personal data… A real danger for your privacy and the security of your devices. Of course, it’s hard to imagine your neighbor or childhood friend hacking our network. But even without bad intentions, their devices could be infected with malware that spreads across your own network without your knowledge.
Another inconvenience: sharing bandwidth. The more users connected simultaneously, the more the internet speed is distributed. Watching videos or gaming online can quickly become problematic. The speed of your wifi may seriously suffer. As you will have understood, sharing your wifi is a very bad idea which can get you into serious trouble. But what do you do when you are a trader or want to help someone out?
The safest solution is to opt for a public WiFi network separate from your private network. Many routers offer this option. This will allow your guests to connect without compromising the security of your personal network. If you absolutely must share your private wifi, be sure to change the password regularly and enable WPA2 encryption for added security. You can also restrict access to certain devices.
