In this article, Harmish Patel discusses the required licensing and registration for opening a Cyber Café in India.

Today, Internet is one of the best inventions in the history of Information Technology sector. The use of Internet has been increased by leaps and bounds in the world. India has maximum number of Internet users after China which makes India 2^nd most Internet addicted nation. Internet has made life of the person easy because it provides users with a wide range of Information through its different sources.

Cyber Café

Cyber Café or Internet café has been started with the intention to provide internet services and other services to its users. It is the place where you can access the Internet, play games, view your emails, chat with relatives and friends, access videos etc. Cyber Café has become one of the businesses nowadays where you are charged in exchange of the services. These businesses also provide drinks and snacks, so the name “café” is attached in it. These café has several computer stations connected to LAN. There are hotels, resorts and ships which provides internet access to the guests. Our own pc and laptops can be also used by connecting it to cyber cafe’s LAN via wireless connection. Cyber Café’s also gives training to the person who does not know the usage of internet and other activities available there. Cyber Café is also defined under Information Technology Act 2000and rules and regulations are been mentioned under Information Technology Rules 2011.

Steps to be followed for running Cyber Café business in India

Registration of Cyber Café

(1) All cyber cafes shall be registered with a URN (Unique Registration Number) through an agency called as registration agency has been notified by the state Government in this regard. The requirements of registration shall include:

(i) Name of establishment.

(ii) Address with contact details including email address.

(iii) Whether individual or partnership or sole proprietorship or society or company.

(iv) Name of owner.

(v) Date of Incorporation

(vi)  Whether registered or not (if yes, copy of registration with Registrar of Firms or Registrar of Companies or Societies).

(vii) Type of service to be provided from cyber café.

Officer is appointed by the registration agency to inspect the registration of the cyber cafe. It is the duty of the director to give each and every details to the registration agency so that the details of the cyber café are been made available on the website of the registration agency. The detailed process of registration that is followed by the state government is also notified by the central government.

Identification of User

(1) The Cyber Cafe should not allow any person to access the services of cyber café without the identity of the user. The user has to produce certain documents before having the access to the services of the cyber café so that proper identification of user is known. Such documents are as follows:

(i)  Identity card issued by any School or College.

(ii) Photo Credit Card or debit card issued by a Bank or Post Office.

(iii) Passport or

(iv)  Voter Identity Card or

(v) Permanent Account Number (PAN) card issued by Income-Tax Authority or

(vi)  Photo Identity Card issued by the employer or any Government Agency or

(vi)  Driving License issued by the Appropriate Government or

(vii) Unique Identification (UID) Number issued by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI).

Log Register

(1) After the identification of the user and any person associated with him has been established as per sub-rule (1) of rule 4, the Cyber Cafe shall register and maintain the required information of each user as well as associated person in the log register for a minimal period of one year.

The Cyber Cafe shall maintain an online version of the log register. This online version of log register shall be checked by using digital signature. The log register should contain details which are as follows:

(i) Name

(ii) Address

(iii)  Gender

(iv) Contact Number

(v) Type and detail of identification document

(vi) Date

(vii) Computer terminal identification

(viii) Log in Time

(ix) Log out Time

A monthly report of log register including date wise details and use of computer resource shall be prepared and there shall be submission of hard copy and soft copy to the agency of registration or person as pointed out by the registration agency by the 5^th of every month.

It becomes the responsibility of the cyber café owner for protecting and to keep backups for log records of each access by the user, for at least one year. The backups should include the following:

• History of websites accessed by user using computer resource at cyber café.
• Logs of proxy server installed at cyber cafe. Cyber Cafe may refer to “Guidelines for auditing and logging – CISG-2008-01” prepared and updated from time to time by Indian Computer Emergency Response Team.

Cyber cafe shall ensure that log register is not changed and it is been maintained in a secure manner for a period of at least one year.

Administration of Physical Layout and PC asset

1. Partitions of Cubicles put inside the Cyber Cafe, should not surpass four and half feet in range from the floor level.
2. The screen of all PCs introduced other than in Partitions or Cubicles should be confronted ‘outward’, i.e. they should confront the regular open space of the Cyber Cafe.
3. Any Cyber Cafe having work areas or segments might not enable minors to utilize any PC asset in desk areas or allotments aside from when they are recognized by their gatekeepers or guardians.
4. All time checks and servers introduced in the Cyber Café of the PC framework should be coordinated with the IST (Indian Standard Time).
5. All the PCs in the cyber cafe might be furnished with the monetarily accessible security or separating programming in order to maintain a strategic distance from quite far, access to the sites identifying with erotica including kid smut or disgusting data.
6. Cyber Cafe should take vital measures to guarantee that their PC asset is not used for any unlawful action.
7. Cyber Cafe might show on the PC that review the explicit destinations on PC is prohibited and one ought to do nothing which is against the law or illicit.
8. Cyber Cafe should make essential measures to not permit the client from meddling with the PC framework settings.
9. Client personality data and log enlist ought to be kept up by cyber bistro in a secure way.
10. Record of the cyber bistro’s staff might be kept up for 1 year legitimately.
11. Cyber cafe might not abuse or change the data in the log register.[ Information Technology Rules-2011]

Investigation of Cyber Cafe

Registration organization chooses the officer to check or investigate cyber cafe and the PC asset of system set up in that, whenever to check whether the cyber bistro is working as indicated by the principles specified or not. Inspecting officer have the privilege to check each related registers, reports and any important data to the reviewing officer on demand.[ Information Technology Rules-2011]

Licenses expected to open Cyber Café

1. Enlistment of business name with state government, if necessary. A DBA (Doing Business As) is required at whatever point you are leading business under a name other than your own. Enrolling a DBA name is commonly done through state government or area agent’s office.
2. Deals assess permit. This can be acquired from your state Department of Taxation and Finance. You should keep legitimate data on the things sold and their sum and the business charge that was gathered…
3. Government charge ID number. You should record a different assessment form for your business and along these lines should have an elected duty ID number. You can discover the shape online at www.irs.gov.
4. Acquire building permits. Check with your neighborhood region for the sorts of grants required. Get a legitimate counselor in the event that you don’t know how to round out the structures—better to pay little expenses in advance and have genuine feelings of serenity than to have costly intricacies down the road.[ http://www.wikihow.com/Set-up-an-Internet-Cafe]

Setting up Hardware parts

Equipment parts:

1. Chip: 1 GHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processors will for the most part useful for the PCs. On the other hand, you could pick present day processors (no less than 800 MHz).
2. Hard plate: Adequate hard circle storage room. Aside from that, there ought to be space for your clients.
3. Memory: PC ought to have a base 510 MB memory.
4. Screens: The favored screen sizes are 12-17 inches.
5. 100 Mbps organize card: The system cards give quick Ethernet rates to your top notch review PCs. They aid smooth record sharing, printers, email and advancing Voice over IP (VoIP) as an administration so clients can call their companions or relatives at a far prudent rate.
6. Video card: The visual experience when taking a gander at pictures, playing diversions or watching recordings is controlled by the video card
7. Sound card: This is a standout amongst the most critical elements of cyber bistro, sound card is essential for PCs to create better nature of sounds.[ http://ccaoi.in/]

Conclusion

In this way, Cyber Café demonstrates helpful to the individuals who don’t have the web association at home. In India many individuals go to Internet bistro to complete their everyday online exercises. Web cafes, or cybercafés, are spots that give administrations of web and different exercises and consequently clients need to pay them according to the time they have gotten to the administrations. Web cafes can be set up in genuine eating/drinking foundations, voyage ships, or different sorts of areas. Other than utilizing the PC workstation, you may likewise have the capacity to print or sweep reports, contingent upon the Internet cafe. Yet, today the matter of Cyber Café has been declining in light of the fact that individuals get access of web at home, as they have the wide band association at home. Building up the cyber bistro is not a major ordeal, it has less prerequisites as contrast with different organizations however proprietors must be more secure on the grounds that cyber wrongdoing is been expanding in present day world.

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Suggested Readings

All You Need To Know About Cyber Laws In India

Legal framework governing spamming on the internet

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