Personal information filed at Companies House

Personal information about those involved in running companies has to be filed at Companies House. We summarise the ways in which you can protect yourself from your details being misused by the wrong people.

Residential addresses

Wherever possible, an individual should use a service address rather than their residential address on official records. This offers them some protection from unwanted marketing and fraud. If their residential address appears on a document already filed at Companies House, they can apply to have it supressed.

In the cases of directors and PSCs, residential addresses must be provided for the company’s and Companies House’s records, but it cannot be disclosed to the public. It can be disclosed to credit reference agencies and certain public authorities, e.g. the police and HMRC. In most cases, this adequately protects a director’s or PSC’s personal information. However, if the disclosure to credit reference agencies may put the individual at risk of violence or intimidation, an application can be made to Companies House to withhold the information from credit reference agencies as well.

Other information

Other action can be taken in specific circumstances to supress personal information on the public record.

Advice

As well as the options outlined in our summary that deal specifically with information held at Companies House, individuals concerned about how their information is used have a number of rights to find out who uses their data and how, and to have it corrected, deleted and its use restricted. See the Information Commissioner’s Office website for details (https://ico.org.uk/your-data-matters/).