ILLEGAL Internet cafes would not be closed down if they accepted certain requirements by the city s public security bureau.
Unlicensed Internet cafes would be allowed to operate as long as they submitted an application to police stations and paid some fees, the Southern Metropolis Daily reported yesterday.
They would also have to install an ID card scanning device so police could have access to the identities of cafe customers.
Qualified illegal Internet cafes would be called Internet rented apartments.
There were around 700 Internet rented apartments in Guangming New Zone and police had arrested 13 criminals with the help of the ID card scanning devices installed in the cafes, the paper said.
The acceptance of illegal Internet cafes would help public security management but would not change their illegal status, police said.
The lack of enough licensed Internet cafes for the large number of migrant workers had given rise to a large number of illegal Internet cafes, a government meeting was told Oct. 18 last year.
In Bao an District alone at the end of last year, there were 5,154 illegal Internet cafes compared with the 360 legal premises, the paper said.
There were a total of 1,144 legal Internet cafes in the city at the end of last year.
Legal Internet cafe operators, however, had complained about illegal Internet cafes being allowed to operate with police permission.
Many legal Internet cafes had reported losses since the beginning of the year because of competition from the illegal cafes, the paper said.
Legal Internet cafe operators had invested much more on facilities than illegal operators.
Vice dean of the law school of Shenzhen University, Song Weimin, said the government should lower the requirements for business licensing and strictly following laws concerning the management of Internet cafes to solve the dilemma in the city s Internet cafes.
Longgang District was considering implementing a one-year grace period to allow illegal Internet cafes to apply for business licenses. (Li Hao)
