Information note register data Geo Intelligence

Aim of this information notice

The following information informs you about the data published with the product “Geo Intelligence” by Insaas.ai, especially with regard to data protection. We inform you about the legal background as well as the way of processing the data. We explain under which conditions data will be blocked upon request and how we proceed with erroneous data.

What is register data?

Companies are required by law to publish information about themselves and their legal representatives (managing directors, authorized signatories, etc.). This disclosure serves to ensure legal certainty in the relationships between the respective company and outsiders – i.e. in particular suppliers and customers, banks and investors, but also existing or potential employees.

Register data and data protection

The disclosure of register data is overriding the protection of privacy. Therefore, the public presentation of the register data is also in line with the provisions of the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

The European Court of Justice has stated in a landmark decision that disclosure as an infringement of the fundamental rights of the persons concerned (such as the protection of personal data) is in principle to be accepted (judgment of 09.03.2017, case number C-398/15). This explicitly applies even after the dissolution of the respective company. In individual cases, however, access restrictions may be justified.

If personal data is processed in this context, the legal basis for this is found in Art. 6 (1) sentence 1 lit f GDPR. The processing of the data is necessary to protect the legitimate interests. A restriction finds the processing only in the collision with the interests or fundamental right and freedoms of the data subject, provided that these outweigh the further processing. Legitimate interests of the general public in the processing of personal register data are in particular the information of the representation of corporations for the enforcement of claims. Legal representatives of corporations may, depending on the legal basis of the claim, be directly or indirectly liable to creditors for the fulfillment of a liability for up to 10 years after their departure. Against this background, there is a weighty interest in the publication of this information.

Origin of the register data

We receive the register data published by us in our product “Geo Intelligence” from the company North Data GmbH (northdata.de), unless a different source is explicitly stated. This is exclusively data from the following public sources:

• Commercial register (handelsregister.de)
• Commercial register notices (handelsregisterbekanntmachungen.de)
• Insolvency notices (insolvenzbekanntmachungen.de)
• Electronic Federal Gazette (bundesanzeiger.de)
• BaFin (German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority, bafin.de)
• Funding catalog of the BMBF (foerderportal.bund.de)
• Global LEI Index (gleif.org)
• German Patent and Trademark Office (dpma.de)
• German Chamber of Industry and Commerce (vermittlerregister.info)

These are exclusively publications of the respective companies (directly or on behalf, usually by a notary at the competent district court) or judicial, legal and official publications.

In addition, we store company data collected by the company Echobot Media Technologies GmbH (echobot.de). This data is obtained by evaluating the imprint data of service providers within the meaning of § 5 of the German Telemedia Act (TMG).

Data categories

Insaas.ai processes the following categories of data:

• Communication data (first name, last name, title, address (street and house number, postal code, city), email address, telephone, fax and mobile phone number)
• Personal data (date of birth, fields of interest within the scope of voluntary information)
• Professional data (professional degree, trade or other license)
• Organizational data (company name, managing director, shareholder, contact person, company address, Internet address, legal form of the company, function/position, company age).
• Business data (sales, company structure, number of employees, creditworthiness, product and service partners, contact persons, memberships, focus areas, brokered products and business distribution, top providers, amount of business share with product providers or pools)
• Registration data (HR number, professional registration number, IHK registration number)
• Data regarding the website and social media presence
• Customer reviews on the service

Data storage and processing

In the case of register data, Insaas.ai works on the principle of a search engine. Similar to the way Google or Bing search or “index” websites, Insaas.ai indexes corporate duty publications.

The publications are processed on our servers in a fully automated manner, combining information from the various sources to create a large, complete broker or agent profile.

Blocking of data

We will block data upon request under the following conditions.

Requirements for the blocking of entries on persons

1. Obsolete data: the person is no longer acting as a legal representative and his/her function(s) as a legal representative are at least past:
   
   1. Managing directors, board members and equivalent positions: 5 years after leaving the company
   2. Liquidators and liquidators: 5 years after the expiry of the function.
   3. Authorized signatories: 1 year after leaving their function
   4. Personal liability as a registered merchant: 1 year after the expiry of the entry in the Commercial Register.
   5. Legal representatives in the case of registered associations: after leaving their position
2. Special need for protection. Please explain the special interest in blocking your data as part of the request, or attach suitable evidence to this effect.

Requirements for the blocking of entries on companies

1. Obsolete data with personal reference
   
   1. Company has been defunct for 5 years (associations, merchants: 1 year) (i.e. the liquidation phase has been completed)
   2. the request is made by the liquidator or last managing director, or a survivor/heir thereof
   3. the name of the company has a direct personal reference
   4. the company was an association or a micro-corporation
2. Special need for protection. Please explain this in the context of your request, or attach suitable evidence.

Procedure for requesting blocking

Please make your request in writing (ideally by email to privacy@insaas.ai). The following information is required:

1. The indication of the company name to which the blocking request relates
2. A justification for the blocking, that is, which of the above conditions are met
3. Authorization of the applicant (legal representative in case of companies)
4. Legitimation (the email address of the applicant is sufficient in most cases) or representation of your power of attorney.

We reserve the right to refuse requests – especially if a special public interest in the entries prevails, the request is not complete, does not meet the above requirements, or contains false information.

Incorrect data and corrections

Our goal is to provide complete and error-free data. This is not always possible, as errors may occur during automated processing as well as in the underlying sources, or the sources may not be historically complete.

We ask that you bring errors to our attention, ideally by email to privacy@insaas.ai, and describe the error to us. A blanket indication that a company or person entry is incorrect is not sufficient: we need to know which information is incorrect.

We then initiate a correction procedure, which consists of the following steps:

1. Temporary blocking of the affected entry(s)
2. Clarification: Investigation of the errors and delimitation of the cause of the error
3. Depending on the outcome of the clarification:
   
   1. if the error is in the automated processing and could be corrected, the blocking is lifted
   2. if the error is in the automated processing and could not (yet) be corrected, the blocking is maintained
   3. if there is an error in the original publications, the blocking will be maintained unless the person concerned requests that it be lifted. Correction of the data is not possible in this case, as data at Insaas.ai is not processed separately, but as a dependent extract of the respective original publications. We cannot change the original publications, as they are public documents.
   4. if there is no error, the block is removed

The data entered in the public registers are the authoritative reference for us. A change requires a corresponding entry and announcement in the commercial register. Only material errors lead to the initiation of a correction procedure (not material are e.g. upper/lower case).