Rome – In a heavily immigrant neighborhood near the main railway station, Ahmed Sohel points dejectedly to the empty computer terminals at the modest storefront where he sells Internet and telephone service.
“Before, I was full of Internet clients; now I have no one left,” said Sohel, a gentle, middle-aged immigrant from Bangladesh.
A new Italian law requires businesses that offer Internet access to the public, like Sohel’s, to ask clients for identification and log the owner’s name and the document type.
Cybercafes also must make and keep a photocopy of the ID and be registered with their local police station, dictates the law, part of an anti-terrorism package approved after the July terrorist bombings in London.
Many cybercafe owners say the law has increased their workload and decreased their profits.
“We’re selling the store, and in part this is the reason,” said Dolores Cabrera, who owns Kokonet, an Internet storefront across town near the Vatican. About half of Cabrera’s prospective clients either don’t have their passport with them or won’t show it, she said.
At the cybercafes, there isn’t much confidence among workers that such measures could help prevent a terrorist attack.
“These people caused the twin towers to collapse,” said Edoardo Righi, a computer technician at a store near the tourist-rich neighborhood of Campo dei Fiori. “They’re not going to stop because they can’t send an e-mail.”
