New inspection regime for the Companies Register

In order to protect personal privacy, the new inspection regime for the Companies Register have been gazetted to implement in three phases started from late August.


Phase 1: from August 23, 2021, companies may replace usual residential addresses (URAs) of directors with their correspondence addresses, and replace full identification numbers (IDNs) of directors and company secretaries with their partial IDNs for public inspection on their own registers.

Phase 2 : from October 24, 2022, Protected Information on the Index of Directors on the Register will be replaced with correspondence addresses and partial IDNs for public inspection. Protected Information contained in documents filed for registration after commencement of this phase will not be provided for public inspection. “Specified persons” could apply to the CR for access to Protected Information of directors and other persons.

Phase 3 : from December 27, 2023, data subjects could apply to the CR for protecting from public inspection their Protected Information contained in documents already registered with the CR before commencement of Phase 2, and replace such information with their correspondence addresses and partial IDNs. “Specified persons” could apply to the CR for access to Protected Information of directors and other persons.

*”Specified persons” will include the data subjects and their authorised persons; members of the company; public officers, public bodies and persons/organisations who need to use Protected Information for execution of statutory functions; lawyers practising in law firms and practising accountants; banks; and financial institutions and designated non-financial businesses and professions regulated under the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorist Financing Ordinance (Cap. 615)

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