What guest data to collect on your WiFi
Your WiFi login is a form a guest fills in with one thumb while the menu is still in their other hand. Every box you add is one more reason to give up. Here is what each field is for, what it costs, and the short list we would start with.
Every field is a trade
A login form is not a survey. The guest wants the internet; you want a way to reach them later. Each extra field makes the form slower to fill in on a small screen, and some guests will stop and use mobile data instead. We have not published a figure for how many, and you should be wary of anyone who quotes one for your venue without measuring it.
The other cost is responsibility. Every piece of personal data you hold has to be explained to guests, kept safe, and deleted when it is no longer needed. A field you never use is all cost and no benefit.
So the question for each field is simple: which message, or which decision, depends on it? If you cannot name one, leave it off.
Picture the Saturday brunch queue. A couple has waited twenty minutes for a table, the coffee has just arrived, and one of them wants to check the football score. A form with two fields and two boxes takes moments. A form that also wants a surname, a phone number, a full date of birth and a postcode feels like an application, and the phone goes back in the pocket. You lose the email, the review, and the chance to invite them back, all for fields you were never going to use.
Field by field
| Field | What it is for | Cost to the guest | Our advice |
|---|---|---|---|
| Every message after the visit: review request, thank you, return invitations | Typing an address on a phone | Always. It is the guest list | |
| First name | Greeting the guest by name in the first email | Small; quick to type | Yes. Shown on every VoqadoWiFi login |
| Last name | Telling apart two guests with the same first name; matching to bookings by hand | Another field to type | Usually leave off |
| Phone | Contacting guests outside email | Feels personal; more guests hesitate | Only if you will use it. VoqadoWiFi does not send SMS |
| Birthday | A birthday message on the day, from 09:00 local time | Month and day only | Add when you are ready to run the birthday message |
| Age gate | Asking guests to confirm they meet the minimum age before the form | One extra tap before the form | Only for age restricted venues |
| Marketing consent | Permission for offers and news by email | One tap, and the guest can skip it | Always, separate and unticked |
| SMS consent | Permission for text messages | Appears only with the phone field | Only if phone is shown and you will text |
The fields in more detail
The one field that everything else rests on. The review request, the thank you after a first visit, the return invitation a month later: all of them go to this address. On VoqadoWiFi guests sign in with an email; there is no social login.
First name
A first name turns “Hello” into “Hi Maria”, and it helps your team recognise a regular in the guest list. Labels can be renamed per venue, so a hotel can call it Guest name if that reads better.
Last name
Useful mainly if staff look guests up by surname, for example matching a dinner booking by hand. VoqadoWiFi has no POS or hotel PMS integration, so the last name will not link records for you. For most cafés and bars it is a field to leave off.
Phone and SMS consent
A phone number feels more personal than an email, and guests treat it that way. VoqadoWiFi does not send text messages. When you show the phone field, a separate box appears that reads “Text me offers and news from” the venue, so any texting you do elsewhere has its own permission. If you have no plan to text, do not ask.
Birthday
The VoqadoWiFi birthday field takes month and day, not year. That is all a birthday message needs, and a birthday message is sent on the venue’s local date from 09:00. A birth year would add risk without adding a use.
Age gate
For a hookah lounge or a bar, the age gate asks the guest to confirm their age before the form appears, with the minimum age set by the venue. The guest taps to confirm they meet it; it is a self declared check, not a data field you will market with.
Marketing consent
The box that makes the whole list usable. On a VoqadoWiFi login using the explicit consent form, the default for new venues, it starts unticked, sits apart from the WiFi terms, and reads “Email me offers and news from” the venue. Each choice is stored with the exact wording shown, a wording version, the time and the source. Accepting the WiFi terms is stored separately and never counts as marketing consent.
What not to collect
- Anything you cannot name a use for. Postcode, gender, job title, how did you hear about us: if no message or decision depends on it, it is friction and liability.
- A full date of birth. Month and day cover a birthday message; an age gate covers age.
- Identity documents, payment details or passwords. A WiFi login is not the place for any of them.
- A pre ticked marketing box. A box the guest did not tick is not a choice the guest made.
- Consent folded into the WiFi terms. Getting online and hearing from you are two different decisions.
Data minimisation, in the law's own words
European data protection law has a name for collecting only what you need. Article 5(1)(c) of the General Data Protection Regulation says personal data shall be “adequate, relevant and limited to what is necessary” for the purposes it is processed for, and calls this “data minimisation”.
Article 5(1)(e) adds storage limitation: data that identifies people should be kept for no longer than necessary for those purposes. Article 7(3) says that withdrawing consent should be as easy as giving it.
Whether or not the GDPR applies to your venue, these are sound habits. We read the official text on EUR-Lex on 7 October 2026. This page is general guidance, not legal advice; check the rules where you operate.
Source: Regulation (EU) 2016/679, eur-lex.europa.eu.
How long to keep it
VoqadoWiFi does not decide that for you, and it should not: a hotel with guests who return every winter has different needs from a café on a station platform. What matters is that you decide, write it in your privacy notice, and stick to it.
- Pick a period that matches how you use the list, and say it in your privacy notice. The guest WiFi privacy notice template has a place for it.
- Review the list on a schedule, and remove guests you no longer have a reason to keep.
- Act on deletion requests. Every VoqadoWiFi email links to a page where a guest can stop messages from one venue with one tap, unsubscribe from every venue of the business, or ask for their data to be deleted.
- Remember your copies. A CSV export or a Mailchimp audience is data you hold too, and it needs the same care.
A recommended starter set
If you are setting up a login this week, start here and add only when a message needs it:
- Email, required.
- First name, required.
- WiFi terms, a box the guest needs to get online.
- Marketing consent, separate and unticked.
- Age gate, only if you serve alcohol, hookah or anything else age restricted.
Add the birthday field the week you switch on birthday messages, not before. Leave last name and phone off unless someone on your team can say exactly what they will do with them. A short form is kinder to the guest at the table, and easier to explain to anyone who asks what you hold.
Questions
What is the minimum a WiFi login should collect?
Should I ask for a phone number?
Do I need the full date of birth?
How long should I keep guest WiFi data?
Does accepting the WiFi terms count as marketing consent?
Keep reading
Build a short login on your own WiFi
Email, first name and a separate marketing box, free for one location and 500 guest logins a month. Works with Omada or UniFi.