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Never mind this, the priority of Companies House should be to redact personal details from the public register as this is a fraudsters free for all.
They made a token effort recently to remove the day in the directors date of birth, but this is in most cases ineffective, as the full date of birth is still shown on the previous annual return.
In many cases, an individual director's name, home address, date of birth, a sample of their signature and identity the company's bankers is freely available to any scammer worldwide who cares to search on the beta service.
Directors are entitled to some privacy but when you opt to take advantage of limited company status then you agree that the public has certain access to your business details. If you want more privacy there are other options but with a heightened degree in risk.
Six years is far too short a period to protect the public from so many con artists using the protection of limited company status to get away with what appears to be legalised theft.
Just as it is when they sign a cheque and also give their bank account details and specimen signature!
There's too much security angst in the world today.
I agree. I think that the problem is that the new Companies House website makes it far to easy to obtain this sensitive and private personal data.
The argument that you accepted that this information would be made public when you took on the role of a company director does not hold up for me. If I became a director 20 years ago I was aware that someone could make an effort to obain the information but I did not agree to have my personal details published on the internet. Newly appointed directors use the company address not their personal addresses but why should long serving and former directors be disadvantaged in this way?
Does one not have to take into account also the trade of the limited companies for records retention policy?
e.g. the records retention for Asbestos data is a lot longer than 6 years (life of the individual?)
Suggest
10 years retention, as 6 too short and 15/20 too long
Directors name accompanied by first half of post code at most should be disclosed.
Not home address as if fraudsters are likely to hang around at same abode anyway.
DoB is not a matter for public disclosure other than tombstone engraver.
Horrified by thought of my signature in public domain.
Dont you have 2 signatures the proper one and the squiggle you put on work/ public work so you know the difference
I think that 10 years is more reasonable for many of the reasons stated in comments already posted. Surely the idea is to protect the good guys from the bad guys? If someone is jailed for a serious financial crime and serves 7 years. It is likely that he can re-appear with a newco almost with impunity and eg; defraud a whole new set of people because they cannot check him out thoroughly. This is nothing to do with entrepreneurship. If a so called "entrepreneur" has 5 failed companies in 5 years, then my argument is one of competence and should the public not be entitled to their evidence based opinion on that?
I'm in favour of the '6 years publicly held, forever held in the restricted private register' suggestion.
This allows people to move on with their lives but keeps the records for more serious investigations (which can take years in themselves).
"many of which might have been liquidated/'struck off' through no fault of the directors themselves".
As compliance with Cos House requirements is part of a director's duties, I'm not sure that this statement can ever be true.
To me, this is part of a general relaxation of standards which companies were once required to adhere to. This follows the route taken with the banks and will, no doubt, end with similar consequences.
All of this information has been publically available since the inception of Companies House.
You might of had to go to Companies House, request the records and sit at a microfiche reader but it was all there. Full Name, date of birth, nationality, home address, occupation.
In recent years the ability to use a service address for the public record and hide the residential address has come into force, as has the partial suppression of date of birth.
Limited liability has always come at the price that certain information must be publically available.
People didn't seem to mind this information being public when it took a bit of work for someone to find it. It appears the issue is they just don't like people being able to find it easily.
All of this information has been publically available since the inception of Companies House.
You might of had to go to Companies House, request the records and sit at a microfiche reader but it was all there. Full Name, date of birth, nationality, home address, occupation.
In recent years the ability to use a service address for the public record and hide the residential address has come into force, as has the partial suppression of date of birth.
Limited liability has always come at the price that certain information must be publically available.
People didn't seem to mind this information being public when it took a bit of work for someone to find it. It appears the issue is they just don't like people being able to find it easily.
This is exactly the point. In the past someone would have had to spend time and money to perform a company search to attempt a fraud. That set the bar reasonably high. Now fraudsters have access to this information for free from the comfort of their boiler room anywhere in the world which gives them very low hanging fruit.
Madness! The issues that will be avoided should not be avoidable and "go with the territory" of operating a limited company. If Companies House goes ahead, unless legislation is brought in to prevent it, will there not be firms who make it their business to download all company information and then offer it for sale, much as Companies House does at the moment I guess!
This is a bad move - eradicating history which could be useful to generations of future economists and social historians is unnecessarily destructive, particularly when data storage is getting cheaper all the time. Directors of companies are part of public life whether they like it or not and have to live by the consequences of being so.
I think a six year period is reasonable, bearing in mind if you want some info on a liquidated Company or dissolved Company it will probably be on the web...somewhere.