Recent reports have highlighted that publicly available data on Companies House could be used to target company officers, so it’s vitally important that business directors take the time to ensure that they are taking the necessary precautions.

Limited companies are required, under Corporate Law, to provide information on their business to Companies House, which is then published online. For a director, this will include:

• name
• address
• occupation
• nationality
• date of birth

This information is available not only for the duration of their term in office, but also for the lifetime of the company.  For dissolved companies, it will remain published for 20 years after they are dissolved.

In 2015, Companies House removed the requirement to record the actual day in the date of birth from the public register; from 10 October 2015 only the month and year of birth are shown, for example, March 1975.  This, however, does not apply to documents registered prior to this date, and Companies House holds over 170 million records on UK companies.

What can Company Directors do to protect their identity through these records?

1. You can use an address as your service address that is not your home, for example you may use a Registered Office.
2. For Companies House records that were filed prior to 10 October 2015, you can update your details to at least remove the ‘day’ of your birth from the public domain.

Author: John King

FDR Law

DISCLAIMER: This article should not be regarded as constituting legal advice in relation to particular circumstances. This article is merely a general comment on the relevant topic. If specific advice is required in connection with any of the matters covered in this article, please speak to FDR Law directly.