The cabinet wants to permanently restrict access to the “anti-money laundering register”.

The government wants to permanently close the UBO registry, where organization owners are registered, to the public. This means that only banks, notaries and certain authorities can search people on the registry. Journalists and social organizations can also continue to go there under certain conditions.

The owners of the organizations are registered in the UBO registry, so you can see who the relevant party is. This is important, for example, in detecting fraud, money laundering and terrorist financing; because criminals usually try to hide the real owner in such activities.

Make it visible to everyone

But there has been criticism of the register for years, particularly from big businesses and data protection organisations, because anyone can use it to see how much assets a person has. Critics were proven right late last year when the European Court of Justice ruled that such a public register would conflict with privacy.

Minister Kaag has therefore decided to temporarily close the registration and investigate its future. Today, it was decided that the safe would not be opened to the public in any way. The Senate and House of Representatives still need to approve the amendment.

There will be an exception in the new plans for journalists and non-governmental organizations. They can only access records when investigating cases of fraud, money laundering and terrorist financing. It is not yet clear how this will work in practice.

The land registry also restricts the search function

The land registry office has also received a lot of criticism for being so easy to find addresses and homeowners. Starting next week, it will no longer be possible for anyone to search for information there.

In this case, only governments, notaries, bailiffs and financial companies can search by name. Here too, the land registry makes exceptions for certain groups.

Source: NOS