Berlin After protests from business against the new online commercial register, politicians are now reacting. The problem at stake: Personal data of company directors such as private addresses, dates of birth or scanned signatures can now be called up without restrictions in the portal. The entrepreneurs now fear the misuse of the data, economic damage and dangerous situations for themselves and their families.
SPD economic politician Falko Mohrs assured that the concerns of entrepreneurs were taken “very seriously”. “We will now clarify with the responsible authorities and the Federal Ministry of Justice how we can rectify the situation in the best possible way,” Mohrs told the Handelsblatt. “Based on that, we’ll look at what went wrong here in the implementation.”
The law on the digitization directive offers great advantages, also for the digitization of the commercial register. It is still correct to use this. “Nevertheless, we will take a close look here, since this is very sensitive data,” announced Mohrs.
Since August 1, it has been possible to view and save excerpts from the commercial register and notarial entries such as documents via the joint register portal of the federal states without registration and costs. The legal basis is the law that implements the EU Digitization Directive (DiRUG).
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The association “Die Familienunternehmer” is calling for the portal to be switched off in order to check whether all stored data is compatible with the General Data Protection Regulation.
requirement of data economy
In a first reaction, the Federal Ministry of Justice (BMJ) told the Handelsblatt that it was currently examining “whether and how the disclosure of personal data in documents submitted to the commercial register can be reduced”.
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The FDP legal politician Katrin Helling-Plahr emphasized: “The examination of the BMJ must be awaited before further action can be specifically discussed.” From the point of view of the FDP parliamentary group, however, the question of which personal data must be entered in the register should be addressed . The state must follow the principle of data economy and demand as little personal data as possible. “Because what is not collected cannot be misused,” Helling-Plahr told the Handelsblatt. At the same time, there must be a way of blocking the data in special cases, such as dangerous situations.
The FDP politician praised the commercial register’s function of contributing to transparency in legal transactions, i.e. informing business partners and the public about essential legal and economic circumstances. Unlike in the 19th century when the first register was created, however, “public” nowadays means internet-public.
Because what is not collected cannot be misused. FDP right-wing politician Katrin Helling-Plahr
Helling-Plahr demanded: “The current developments must therefore be a wake-up call to the legislator to take the justified concerns of those affected seriously.”
Opposition: Ministry must act quickly
Till Steffen, parliamentary director of the Greens parliamentary group and former Hamburg Senator for Justice, told the Handelsblatt: “It’s good that the BMJ is looking at the regulations again.” However, Steffen warned not to lose sight of the purpose of the register.
It serves to ensure transparency and legal certainty and is intended to prevent criminal behavior in particular. “A date of birth, for example, helps to distinguish Müller from Müller,” explained Steffen. “In this respect, this information is basically correct and necessary.”
Warning voices came from the opposition. “The Federal Ministry of Justice must take the concerns of the economy regarding the new online query in the commercial register seriously and act quickly now,” demanded the economic policy spokeswoman for the Union faction, Julia Klöckner (CDU). It is important that authorities handle personal data with care.
It is feared that the freely accessible sensitive data could be used to identify yourself as someone else online, to set up fake accounts or to place fake orders.
(Photo: dpa)
But which data must be available in the register at all? On request, the BMJ refers to “notarization regulations”. Accordingly, for example, a document must contain the handwritten signature of the parties involved. The parties involved must also be identified so precisely that doubts or confusion are excluded. For this, it is generally necessary to provide an address.
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The law itself contains no right of objection that or which data from the register file is published. There are also no plans to limit access to the file for “unfair cases”, i.e. for example if the persons named are at risk.
“If the notary has submitted the documents to the commercial register, there is no right of objection or access restriction,” said a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Justice. “Because of the publicity principle of the commercial register, once entries and documents have been made, they must be preserved and accessible.” This would mean that the data that is currently available can no longer be removed.
Ministry: notaries responsible
For the future, the Ministry of Justice sees the notaries as having an obligation: they would have the task of identifying dangerous situations and not even submitting documents that could cause corresponding risks to the commercial register.
The economic policy spokeswoman for the Union faction emphasizes that it is important for authorities to handle personal data carefully.
(Photo: IMAGO/Political Moments)
The service regulations for notaries provide for this possibility. For example, an “electronic transcript” can also be submitted with the signature. This means that the submitted document only matches the original document in terms of content, but does not show the scanned signature as an image, for example.
The German Association for Data Protection (DVD) accuses Germany of not having correctly implemented the EU digitization directive. These expressly refer to the validity of the General Data Protection Regulation. For this reason, the legitimate interests of those affected must be taken into account.
The DVD said: “Instead of implementing this correctly, the German administration made it easy for itself and put the earlier decentralized registers, which were previously only accessible with effort, one to one on the Internet.” The data protection association calls for the register to be “cleaned up”. about sensitive data and a “correction of the legal bases”.
More: Lists of shareholders, places of residence and signatures online: New commercial register alarms entrepreneurs