Hide your address on the ICO register

How to avoid publishing your address on the ICO register of fee payers

The vast majority of businesses and organisations in the UK need to pay a Data protection fee to ICO (Information Commissioner’s Office). This includes sole traders. When you pay your fee, the ICO publishes your business details on a public register. Obviously, this isn’t ideal if you use your home address as your business address.

You have two options:

• Use a PO Box or virtual address service. If you want to be careful about privacy generally, this is the way to go. You can then use the alternative address for everything, not just ICO.
• Ask ICO to hide your address. Do this if you don’t want the cost of a virtual address or PO Box, but still want to avoid your address showing up on the register. This is still worth doing, even if you’re putting your home address on things like invoices. The ICO register is public, and likely to be an obvious place for people to look for info, as well as accessible to scrapers seeking company details.

To hide your address on the ICO register:

1. Go through the application process: Register.
2. When you reach payment, select Pay by Cheque. This means you don’t pay immediately, and so your details aren’t published. Don’t worry: you’re not actually committed to paying by cheque.
3. You should receive two emails: one with your security code, one with payment instructions. This happened within a few hours for me, but allow until the next working day.
4. Contact ICO and ask them to hide your address. Get the phone number from the ICO website: Information we will collect and publish.
5. You can now go ahead and pay by whatever method you prefer, using the information in the payment instructions email.