In the future, entrepreneurs will be able to protect their residential address in the Trade Register of the Chamber of Commerce. It will also be possible to protect phone numbers and email addresses. Entrepreneurs must then have an alternate mailing address.

The Minister of Economic Affairs, Miki Adriansens, writes In a letter to Parliament It directs the Chamber of Commerce to implement these changes. This relates to an amendment to the commercial register that entrepreneurs must register with. Entrepreneurs still have to provide a physical home address when registering, but this information will no longer be publicly available. In this case, the entrepreneur must specify a PO. This costs about 280 euros per year.

Actual residence addresses can still be requested by the legally authorized authorities. These are, for example, the police or bailiffs.

In addition to residential addresses, phone numbers and email addresses will also be protected in the commercial registry in the future. Along with this procedure, the option to purchase data from the commercial registry will also disappear. This was a thorn in the side of many entrepreneurs, with whom the commercial parties regularly communicated for propaganda purposes.

Modifications are especially interesting for independent entrepreneurs. They usually use their home address as the location of their business. This made it easier to find residence addresses for journalists, for example. For this reason, the CR has been criticized by the House of Representatives in recent years. also The Dutch data protection authority criticized† Former Minister Mona Keijzer did not want to change the commercial register because it had to be public according to European rules. However, the Chamber of Commerce relaxed earlier this year Data protection rules for business men.

Minister Adriaansens acknowledges that protecting the trade registry will cost the Chamber of Commerce a lot of money. An important part of the Chamber of Commerce’s income comes from the commercial sale of data. “During the fall, I will elaborate more on the financial implications and present coverage proposals so they can be included in upcoming budgets,” the minister wrote in her letter.