Personal information shown on the business names and companies registers

ASIC maintains public registers of business names and companies. These registers contain personal information. If you are worried about your safety, you can ask us to hide some details.

Business names register

The business names register is a database of business names and the people or organisations that hold them.

Anyone can search the business names register to find out about a business name holder.

Sole traders, partnerships and companies who operate under their own name will not be on the business names register.

We are required by law to make some information on the register available to the public. Information that is available for free includes:

• the name of the business name holder – this could be a person or organisation
• service of documents address
• principal place of business address
• date the business name was registered
• next renewal date
• whether or not the registration is current.

The service of documents address is always available to the public. This is so that people can contact your business. If you do not want your home address published online, do not use it as your service of documents address. You could use a PO Box, or your accountant’s address instead, for example.

If you’re an individual business name holder and your principal place of business is your home address, we will only show the suburb, state and postcode.

Companies register

Anyone can search the companies register to find information about a company.

Personal information is not available in the free search of the companies register.

However, people can buy an extract that contains personal information about company officeholders. This personal information includes:

• given and family name
• any former given and family name
• date and place of birth
• residential address.

Correcting personal information on the registers

You can correct details on the business names register. See Ask ASIC to correct business name details.

You can also correct details on the companies register. See Correct details on the companies register.

Making a complaint

To make a complaint about our personal information handling practices, you can submit a complaint online.

For information about how ASIC will handle your complaint, see Complaints about ASIC.