Right to privacy re: CRO

EagerBeaverton

I'm trying to write this so that it's not asking for specific legal advice, and hope I've done that - I'm not in legal trouble or anything, it's more related to my privacy rights...or whether I have any rights.

Basically, I have begun work in a profession where there is some potential for there to be danger to the safety of my family and myself if people connected to the work could locate my home address. Prior to getting into this profession I had set up a small limited company using my home address as the place of business. Problem is that now when you google my name, my home address is visible on the first page because it's online at the SoloCheck.ie website and can be located from the CRO.ie website also.

CRO have a policy "Withholding of Residential Address – Company Officer" (I can't provide the link as I'm a new user) but it can only be used BEFORE the business details are registered with them. They won't go back into their forms and remove details, even if I obtained a supporting statement from a Garda stating I could be in danger given how easy it is for my address to be located.

I've asked CRO and they politely told me they won't change the details they have for me from the past. Is this one of those things that I'm just stuck now with having my home address freely available online? Is there any (non-legal) sort of route I could try that anyone could suggest? I'll look into a legal route myself but thought I'd see if there's another way before going that route.

Really appreciate any info or steer (non-legal steer of course).

Paulw

You could try the Google right to forget option. That way it would be harder to search for you.

http://www.tomsguide.com/us/google-how-to-be-forgotten,news-18871.html

But, the CRO are unlikely to change things for you.

Pat Mustard

EagerBeaverton wrote: »

CRO have a policy "Withholding of Residential Address – Company Officer" (I can't provide the link as I'm a new user) but it can only be used BEFORE the business details are registered with them. They won't go back into their forms and remove details, even if I obtained a supporting statement from a Garda stating I could be in danger given how easy it is for my address to be located.

Link to the page that you mentioned.

Is your company still in being or has it been wound up/dissolved?

CIARAN_BOYLE

I'm sorry.

There are certain activities that rightfully put your details in the company domain. Being a company director is one of them.

I would ensure the company is wound up and move address if I wanted to continue working in this new profession.

EagerBeaverton

@Paulw: Cheers for that, will take a look at that right to be forgotten route. Yeah it's a bit disheartening when the CRO person I spoke with said they totally understood my reasons for not wanting my personal information online but that they couldn't help.

@Pat Mustard: The company is still running and while it only brings in a low four figure sum (net profit) yearly, it's a sum that I could ideally do with keeping. But if winding it up would allow me to remove all personal details from CRO then I'd seriously consider it. Do they allow data to be removed if the company was ceased?

@CIARAN_BOYLE: Oh yeah I totally appreciate that, I'm not trying to circumvent what I totally understand are important reasons for having company information publicly available, I just thought there might have been an option for someone with valid concerns to use such that my information could be hidden but still accessible if someone made a legal/official submission to access, so at least it would be known that someone was attempting to locate a personal address; I'm probably expecting a bit too much. Moving house isn't an option at the moment, but your point on that is still valid.

CIARAN_BOYLE

You my find it interesting that the reason why you can't backdate the Form T1 is that previous returns are historic and the form that was submitted at the time must be publicly available.

Otherwise there would be allegations that forms B1 filed could have been amended in other ways.

There was a legal case recently where the contents of a B1 company return from the 70s formed part of the evidence. I'm afraid I do not recall the details but the companies returns are historic documents that remain in the public domain for years to come.

irishgeo

Have you tried contacting the data protection commissioner and see if they have any advice.

Big Lar

Change company address to a PO box ?

Paulw

Big Lar wrote: »

Change company address to a PO box ?

That still wouldn't change the historic data stored by the CRO, which is publicly available.

Ted001

EagerBeaverton wrote: »

@Paulw: Cheers for that, will take a look at that right to be forgotten route. Yeah it's a bit disheartening when the CRO person I spoke with said they totally understood my reasons for not wanting my personal information online but that they couldn't help.

@Pat Mustard: The company is still running and while it only brings in a low four figure sum (net profit) yearly, it's a sum that I could ideally do with keeping. But if winding it up would allow me to remove all personal details from CRO then I'd seriously consider it. Do they allow data to be removed if the company was ceased?

@CIARAN_BOYLE: Oh yeah I totally appreciate that, I'm not trying to circumvent what I totally understand are important reasons for having company information publicly available, I just thought there might have been an option for someone with valid concerns to use such that my information could be hidden but still accessible if someone made a legal/official submission to access, so at least it would be known that someone was attempting to locate a personal address; I'm probably expecting a bit too much. Moving house isn't an option at the moment, but your point on that is still valid.

What gives rise to your address being available? Are you a director and/or shareholder?

CIARAN_BOYLE

Ted001 wrote: »

What gives rise to your address being available? Are you a director and/or shareholder?

He is a director and owner.

Pat Mustard

EagerBeaverton wrote: »

@Pat Mustard: The company is still running and while it only brings in a low four figure sum (net profit) yearly, it's a sum that I could ideally do with keeping. But if winding it up would allow me to remove all personal details from CRO then I'd seriously consider it. Do they allow data to be removed if the company was ceased?

The google search results re solocheck are the initial cause for concern because these are what flag your company and may alert somebody to check the CRO for your address.

I think that you should make contact with solocheck to see what information they put up on their site. From a quick look at their site, it appears to me that they publish the most recent company director information and in the case of dissolved companies, the directors who were there at the time of dissolution.

This is just an idea but I wonder if the company changed directors to have you replaced as a director, that your details might not just disappear from solocheck.

This does not get around the issue of the CRO having your details but it may mean that your company may not show up on a google search of your name.

Robbo

This has been a live debate recently in the UK, where Companies House proposed cutting the period it keeps records on dissolved companies from 20 years to 6.

Fred Swanson

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Victor

Fred Swanson wrote: »

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But the information is public record.

Pat Mustard wrote: »

The google search results re solocheck

It's not just Solocheck - there are about 10 such information providers.

Fred Swanson

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Robbo

Fred Swanson wrote: »

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Cut a deal with the CRO, offer minimal information for free, push customers towards purchasing CRO records at twice the price of the CRO. Rinse, lather, repeat.

Victor

I presume buying 100,000 records doesn't cost 100,000 times the cost of buying one record.

ZeroThreat

if someone purchases documents such as abridged accounts or B1 form via CRO, is the company notified of this?

Fred Swanson

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Kitsunegari

Fred Swanson wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

Vision-Net are a bigger provider than Solocheck. They just pay for the CRO records in bulk.

OP: The CRO also won't remove any records relating to you. All you can do is file a B10 and change your address but the information will always be available.

Kitsunegari

ZeroThreat wrote: »

if someone purchases documents such as abridged accounts or B1 form via CRO, is the company notified of this?

No, why would they be?

ZeroThreat

Kitsunegari wrote: »

No, why would they be?

Well if I had known for sure, I wouldn't have asked.

CIARAN_BOYLE

Robbo wrote: »

Cut a deal with the CRO, offer minimal information for free, push customers towards purchasing CRO records at twice the price of the CRO. Rinse, lather, repeat.

well afaik vision net search4less solocheck have a annual subscription service that's very reasonable for bodies in practice.

EagerBeaverton

Thanks all for the replies – apologies for not responding to everyone individually. General vibe is clearly around old CRO records/submissions being permanent and unchangeable.

I totally understand the need for company info to be online and never accessible for legal reasons, I just thought that since there’s the option to hide your personal home address as a director of a company if you apply for that exemption prior to registering the company that it would be possible to hide it still. I would have thought that a hidden address could still be accessed if legally needed so don’t fully see why it couldn’t be done now when there is a genuine potential for risk; I don’t fully see the difference between hiding it now versus hiding it before I register a company (which they allow), but anyway, there's no point fighting the facts of how things are done!

@irishgeo: I had considered the data protection commissioner but I have dealings with that area and reckon it falls outside their remit.

@Pat Mustard: that’s actually a really good idea and I think I’ll try that route and remove myself as director ASAP so that at least the SoloCheck information disappears since the CRO info isn’t coming up in Google. I’m actually thinking of going a step further after changing the directors (and after the SoloCheck info updates), and winding up the business and setting up a new one and applying to have my personal address withheld from the new one. Probably going to cost the best part of a grand to wind up and setup a new one but for peace of mind I think it’s worth it…

Ted001

EagerBeaverton wrote: »

Thanks all for the replies – apologies for not responding to everyone individually. General vibe is clearly around old CRO records/submissions being permanent and unchangeable.

I totally understand the need for company info to be online and never accessible for legal reasons, I just thought that since there’s the option to hide your personal home address as a director of a company if you apply for that exemption prior to registering the company that it would be possible to hide it still. I would have thought that a hidden address could still be accessed if legally needed so don’t fully see why it couldn’t be done now when there is a genuine potential for risk; I don’t fully see the difference between hiding it now versus hiding it before I register a company (which they allow), but anyway, there's no point fighting the facts of how things are done!

@irishgeo: I had considered the data protection commissioner but I have dealings with that area and reckon it falls outside their remit.

@Pat Mustard: that’s actually a really good idea and I think I’ll try that route and remove myself as director ASAP so that at least the SoloCheck information disappears since the CRO info isn’t coming up in Google. I’m actually thinking of going a step further after changing the directors (and after the SoloCheck info updates), and winding up the business and setting up a new one and applying to have my personal address withheld from the new one. Probably going to cost the best part of a grand to wind up and setup a new one but for peace of mind I think it’s worth it…

As far as I know, the CRO will not grant the exemption if your current address was ever disclosed to the CRO. However I cannot find details on this.

Do you need to be a director of this company and do you carry on the duties of a director? If the answer to both of these questions is no, you should simply resign as a director. Your address as a shareholder does not need to be your home, it could be your accountant or solicitor. You will also need to consider the impact on salaries if you currently draw one.

By way of information, if I were to search your name on visionnet, it will bring up your directorships both past and present. The company that is the subject of this thread will show up even if dissolved as it will attach to you and this would then lead a user to the filings of that company and in turn your current address.

Accordingly I don't see any benefit to winding up the current company and it could be costly depending on the details. Your name and address will always be contained in the records of that company on the CRO which can be easily traced so the only way you can get absolute comfort is to move house.

percy212

The information is NEVER removed, even if you wind everything up. Making a request through google for privacy will be useful. It may also be useful to SELL the company to say a solicitor or accountant who keep companies "on the shelf" for new customers. The new directors details will replace yours at the google search/solocheck level.

The inability to permanently change an address via the CRO is a major pain in the hole, and honestly could be a personal safety issue.

CIARAN_BOYLE

EagerBeaverton wrote: »

Thanks all for the replies – apologies for not responding to everyone individually. General vibe is clearly around old CRO records/submissions being permanent and unchangeable.

I totally understand the need for company info to be online and never accessible for legal reasons, I just thought that since there’s the option to hide your personal home address as a director of a company if you apply for that exemption prior to registering the company that it would be possible to hide it still. I would have thought that a hidden address could still be accessed if legally needed so don’t fully see why it couldn’t be done now when there is a genuine potential for risk; I don’t fully see the difference between hiding it now versus hiding it before I register a company (which they allow), but anyway, there's no point fighting the facts of how things are done!

You could file the form so that you can hide your address going forward however historic returns provided by the CRO must be a true copy of past returns signed and filed.

Once something is filed it doesn't change.

Maybe if the company'said next b1 has a hidden address anyone looking for you will think you moved.

So you file a t1
Next time you file a b1 you can say your address is wherever the company has its registered address.
That is what will come up in Google searches.
Only by going to old B1s will anyone find your current address.

Peregrinus

This is a feature, not a bug.

One of the main points about incorporating a company is that it's a way of limiting your personal liability. Anyone dealing with the company has recourse to the company and its assets to satisfy any liabilities that may be owing to them, but they generally can't look through the company to its shareholders or their assets.

Which means that its very important that anyone dealing with the company should be in a position, if they want to, to form a solid judgment about the creditworthiness, reliability, etc of the company, which means (among other things) access to information about the promoters, the people who run it, etc. And it's clearly not enough to know that a director of the company is named Joe Blogs; you need to be given enough information to identify which[?i] of the many Joe Bloggses in the country is the director of this company. "Address" is obviously relevant data here.

Can the CRO be stopped from making your personal data on their register available to the public? No, because the whole reason you put your personal data on their register in the first place was so that it would be available to the public.

percy212

Nonsense from the last century. A person can be identified by their pps number which is required by the CRO when you open a company. There is zero need to keep all historical addresses in the public realm.

Peregrinus

percy212 wrote: »

Nonsense from the last century. A person can be identified by their pps number which is required by the CRO when you open a company. There is zero need to keep all historical addresses in the public realm.

You think their privacy is better protected if we just make their PPS numbers available in the public realm?

percy212

You know very well that is not what I meant.

Peregrinus wrote: »

You think their privacy is better protected if we just make their PPS numbers available in the public realm?

Peregrinus

Then I don't understand what you do mean.

The purpose of giving your information to the CRO is not to make your identity known to the CRO; it's to make your identity publicly known, so that anybody doing business, or even contemplating doing business, with the company can know who is behind it, who is directing it. That;'s one of the conditions on which company promoters get the benefit of limited liability. If company directors are identified by their PPS rather than their address, then it is their PPS rather than their address that will be publicly available.

troll_a_roll

I also don't know what Percy might be referring to. The PPS number cannot be used except by a few named organisations, and it doesn't appear to be of use here.


The Data Protection Act does not apply as the person making the information available is required or permitted to do so under law.


Google and the Right to be Forgotten is fairly flawed in the first place.
Google are supposedly prevented from merely listing that information exists in other places.
In other words, Google may be forced to remove a reference to a newspaper article in its search results but the newspaper article remains on the internet and is perfectly legal. The article just can't be found using Google, if you're in Europe.
Google should never have been forced to remove such references. How is Google at fault for merely saying that someone else is publishing information?

In this case, I don't think Gogle would agree to remove any listings.

KM88

This might be a bit left-field but is it possible for you to change your own name?

For example, a lot of Seans go by Jack, John or Johnny; Edwards go by Eamonn; Seamus goes by Jim, etc. If your new job involves introducing yourself by name, this would make you less traceable via Google or CRO.

Can you use the Irish version of your name at work?

I suspect that might not be feasible for you if you need to operate under your formal, registered name so maybe you could legally change your name? Of course your acquaintances would still know you as before but the legal documents - your work ID - would contain your new legal name.

It has been done before.

Very inconvenient of course but likely cheaper and less inconvenient than moving house

Robbo

I wasn't entirely aware of this as there hasn't been any English versions of the AG's opinion available, but tomorrow the CJEU will give judgment in a case which is relevant here. It's Case C-398/15, Manni.

Here's a useful breakdown.

Robbo

Robbo wrote: »

I wasn't entirely aware of this as there hasn't been any English versions of the AG's opinion available, but tomorrow the CJEU will give judgment in a case which is relevant here. It's Case C-398/15, Manni.

Here's a useful breakdown.

No judgment in English so far but the RTBF doesn't apply to company registers as a general rule, according to the press release. The tradeoff between giving up certain privacy rights in exchange for limited liability was found to be proportional.

However, in certain cases, it may be appropriate for member states to limit access. The door is left slightly open.

I'm not sure how this will sit with the enhanced subject rights under the GDPR but that's a bridge to be crossed next May.

Edit: Full judgment now available in English.

A4droppedalot

This might help... it's a relatively new area of law, https://www.mhc.ie/latest/insights/corporate-law-update-personal-address-exemption-for-officers

justmehere

The information freely available is actually worse than that - name, home address, and date of birth.

What good does making DoB available, do? These are three key pieces of data any hacker needs, and it's all freely available online worldwide.

Form RBN3 can be used for the Cessation of Business (I'm talking about trading name, not Company in the legal sense), however I contacted the CRO who said the information will still be available in their database, but just say "Cessed" when searched.

So I looked at the Registration of Business Names Act 1963 (not the Companies act) and I see section 12(2): "On receipt of such statement the registrar may delete from the register the particulars relating to that business name."

That suggests to me that all personal data should be erased? Simply putting "Cessed" against the record is not good enough. Section 13 says "The registrar shall keep an index of all business names registered under this Act." which is ok but says nothing about keeping the personal information.

Given the heightened sense of personal security, has anyone challenged this?

Ref:
http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/1963/act/30/enacted/en/print.html

ohnonotgmail

justmehere wrote: »

The freely available is actually worse than that - name, home address, and date of birth.

What good does making DoB available, do? These are three key pieces of data any hacker needs, and it's all freely available online worldwide.

Form RBN3 can be used for the Cessation of Business (I'm talking about trading name, not Company in the legal sense), however I contacted the CRO who said the will still be available in their database, but just say "Cessed" when searched.

So I looked at the Registration of Business Names Act 1963 (not the Companies act) and I see section 12(2): "On receipt of such statement the registrar may delete from the register the particulars relating to that business name."

That suggests to me that all personal data should be erased? Simply putting "Cessed" against the record is not good enough. Section 13 says "The registrar shall keep an index of all business names registered under this Act." which is ok but says nothing about keeping the personal .

Given the heightened sense of personal security, has anyone challenged this?

Ref:
http://www.statutebook.ie/eli/1963/act/30/enacted/en/print.html

it says "may" not "must"

Peregrinus

justmehere wrote: »

The information freely available is actually worse than that - name, home address, and date of birth.

What good does making DoB available, do? . . . ]

That change was made a good few years back, after it was claimed in the course of a very large and very public insolvency that the director of one of the companies, Joe Bloggs of 23 Acacia Avenue, was not, as everybody had assumed up to that point, the well-known businessman who lived at that address but his 15-year old son, also Joe.