Right to Be Forgotten – Commercial Register
The Federal Court of Justice has recently ruled that managing directors can have a claim for their personal data to no longer be publicly visible in the commercial register.
A. Why this decision is important for many clients
We are repeatedly asked: Do my private address and my original signature really have to be visible to everyone in the commercial register? This is precisely what the Federal Court of Justice (BGH) addressed in its decision of 18 February 2026 (II ZB 2/25). The case concerns managing directors whose private addresses and handwritten signatures were accessible online in commercial register filings – and who wanted to defend themselves against this.
B. What was the case about in concrete terms?
In the filings for the formation of, and changes to the shareholdings in, a GmbH & Co. KG, the private addresses and original signatures of the managing directors appeared. These documents were available free of charge in the electronic commercial register via the joint register portal of the German Länder – in practice, accessible worldwide.
The parties argued that they held many valuable corporate stakes and saw a real risk of becoming victims of crime, because criminal actors could massively harvest register data and create profiles of natural persons. Their request was therefore simple and practical: replacement of the documents with versions showing the business address and a “signed” notation instead of the original signature.
C. May the register court simply delete or replace such data?
The lower courts (register court and Higher Regional Court of Hamburg) essentially said: No, because similar data on the managing directors can be found in other register documents anyway – replacing individual documents would therefore achieve nothing.
The BGH clearly rejected this view. It held:
• Private addresses and handwritten signatures are personal data within the meaning of the GDPR.
• Entering, storing and providing them online in the commercial register constitutes data processing, for which the register court is responsible.
• There is no general obligation to store over-obligatory (i.e. not legally required) personal data permanently in the register file.
D. Your right to be “forgotten” in the commercial register
A key point for users is the right to erasure under Article 17 GDPR:
• You can withdraw consent you have previously given for the processing of your data – and the BGH recognises that a request for erasure or replacement of documents can at the same time be understood as a withdrawal of consent.
• “Erasure” does not only mean deleting data in the system, but any form of rendering the information unreadable – for example by replacing the document with a cleansed version.
• Importantly, even if your data still appears in other register files, your claim remains. Every reduction in the number of places from which the data can be retrieved lowers the risk of misuse.
In other words: you may proceed selectively and, for example, request cleansing only for certain companies or certain types of documents.
E. What the law actually requires – and what it does not
Many queries revolve around the question: “Isn’t there something in the German Commercial Code saying that everything must remain as originally filed?” The BGH is very clear here:
• Where shareholders are legal entities, the commercial register must show the company name, legal form and registered office – not the names, private addresses or signatures of the managing directors.
• Private addresses and original signatures are therefore over-obligatory data which the legislator has consciously not made mandatory for registration.
• A supposed general “principle of data retention”, under which once-filed documents must remain permanently available and unchanged, cannot be derived from register law.
In conformity with EU law, the BGH interprets section 9 of the Commercial Code to mean that the register file contains the currently valid documents – older originals containing personal data can be moved to the register record, which is less publicly accessible.
F. What notaries and companies can do in practice
For practice – and for the many questions we receive – two points are particularly user-friendly:
• Notaries are allowed to prepare electronic copies in excerpted form and to black out or “white out” personal data such as private addresses or original signatures before submitting documents to the register.
• Filings need only match the original in substance, not visually. It is therefore sufficient to indicate signatures as text (“signed [name]”) instead of making the handwritten signature publicly visible.
Register courts, for their part, can replace documents in the register file: the original, personal-data-heavy document is moved to the register record; the cleansed version showing the business address and “signed” notation takes its place and the replacement is recorded.
G. Our conclusion for clients and readers
From a client’s perspective, the decision can be boiled down to a clear message:
• No, your private address and handwritten signature do not necessarily have to remain permanently in the freely accessible commercial register if the law does not require them.
• Yes, under the GDPR you have an effective right to erasure or replacement, even selectively and even where the data still appears elsewhere.
• And yes, notaries and register courts have the legal and technical means to design register documents in a privacy-friendly way and to clean up existing records.
If you ask us: “Can I ensure that my private address or signature is no longer visible to everyone on the internet?”, then after this BGH decision the answer is: In many cases, yes – and we will work with you to assess whether and how this can be enforced in your specific case.
Do you have questions about data protection in your company? Contact us – we are here to help.
