Companies House Requirements

Thirdfort can help verify the identity of individuals to meet the requirements of Companies House. You can read more about the requirements on gov.uk. 

Thirdfort cannot advise on who you need to verify. Please refer to your own compliance team or officer for guidance.

For the purpose of verifying someone for Companies House, we recommend using the Enhanced NFC ID check. Below, we outline the required Companies House steps, identify where this information appears in the Enhanced NFC check report, and highlight any information you may need to collect through alternative methods.

Walkthrough

Step 1: Ask for information about the person

• Full name and any former names: You can find the individual's full name, and confirmation that it matches the information held within the chip in the passport within the Enhanced NFC ID check (Passport NFC chip) information section of the report. 
  At this time, we do not ask the individual to provide any previous names, beyond identifying and verifying their current legal name. You should verify this separately.
• Date of birth: You’ll also find your client’s date of birth in the ‘Enhanced NFC ID check (Passport NFC chip) information’ section of the report.
• Home address: The individual's home address appears on the front page of the report. In the 'ID check summary' section, you can see whether we have electronically verified the address. If this electronic verification has failed, the individual will have been asked to upload a recent proof of address document as supporting evidence, which you should review.
• Address history for the last 12 months: At this time, we do not ask the individual to verify their address history, beyond verifying their current residential address. You should verify this separately.
• Email address: At this time, we do not ask the individual to verify their email address. You should verify this separately.

Step 2: Get evidence to verify the person’s identity

For this step, you'll need to collect the following information. As part of the Enhanced NFC ID check, we collect all these data points. They are shown on the passport, or alternative ID, and will be included in full within the report you receive.

• document reference number, or equivalent
• expiry date, if the document has one
• country of issue, if the document has one

Thirdfort is an identification document validation technology (IDVT) that can validate the cryptographic features of the document. Our Enhanced NFC ID check can verify a biometric or machine readable passport, or an Irish passport card. It’s worth keeping in mind that for the purpose of verifying the identity of an individual for Companies House, the passport can be up to six months out of date. If the passport used is out of date, this will appear with a "consider" flag in the data validation section.

If the individual does not have a passport they will be asked for alternative photographic identification. In line with the guidelines from Companies House, we accept (non-exhaustive list):

• UK, Channel Islands, Isle of Man and EU photocard driving licences
• UK biometric residence permit
• Identity cards with biometric information from the EU, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein.

Step 3: Check that the evidence is real

If the individual has completed the Enhanced NFC ID check using their passport, we will confirm whether the evidence is real within the ‘ID check summary’. If it is real, the ‘Chip and Document Validation’ will show as a pass.

If the individual has completed the task with another form of ID, the ‘ID check summary’ will look different. In this case you should look for a pass in, ‘Visual authenticity’, ‘Image integrity’, ‘Data validation’, ‘Data consistency’.

Step 4: Check that it is a real identity and it belongs to the person claiming it

During this step, you are looking to confirm:

• The documents confirm the person’s name and date of birth
• The cryptographic features on the document match the information provided by the person, if you’re using IDVT to check the document
• The person physically matches the photo that is on, or goes with the document
• They are a real person

If the individual has completed an Enhanced NFC ID using their passport, you can find this information in the ID check summary. In this case, you should look for a pass in ‘Data comparison’, ‘Face comparison’, ‘Image integrity’, and ‘Visual authenticity’.

If another form of ID has been used, the ‘ID check summary’ will look different. In this case you should look for a pass in, ‘Compromised documents’, ‘Data comparison’, ‘Face comparison’, ‘Image integrity’ and ‘Visual authenticity’.

Step 5: Keep records of the identity checks

You need to keep a copy of this document on file for seven years. To meet their requirements, we recommend downloading a copy of our report and storing it on your own CRM.

Step 6: Decide if you can verify the person’s identity

Using our report and other information you have on the individual, you can decide whether you are able to verify the individual’s identity.