Abstract: A communications network between a central station which broadcasts coded information and at least one receiver suitable for receiving and decoding these broadcasts, in which, in order to control the number of users, permission for users to access the network is determined by a limited number of special receivers respectively assigned to such users and also by the need to authenticate each user before granting access to the program by his receiver. In order to facilitate identification of the user and authentication of his access rights to a particular program, the receiver allows remote authentication, and also local authentication with a memory card in which information related to certain access rights is stored.