Membership - OpenStreetMap Foundation says that one has to provide their residential address to become an OSMF member. At least in Germany you can have secondary places of residence registered with the government (Hauptwohnsitz und Nebenwohnsitze). Is it ok/legal to use such a secondary place of residence to become a member, where mail will reach you and that is registered with the government? FAQ - OpenStreetMap Foundation does not specify that.
For my own personal safety (antifacism in eastern GermanyâŚ) I would like my main address not to be researchable.
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Legally, as of this year, a memberâs address has to be a âservice addressâ which complies with these requirements. Basically, it needs to be able to receive registered post. It doesnât have to be your main place of residence.
(The UK doesnât really have the concept of someoneâs official main place of residence anyway.)
In practice, itâs unlikely to ever be used to send post to at all.
Oh thatâs good to know! Perhaps someone with permissions can add this information to the OSM Foundation page?
Do you know if are there any practical consequences for OSM Foundation if it doesnât enforce / doesnât care / looks away if people use a wholly fake address?
Legally I believe that is only a problem for the member, not for the company.
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The UK does not have a concept of âofficial place of addressâ like in Germany. So you can use your secondary address.
You can also become an associate member. You will then not legally be a member-as-per-the-companys-act, and hence are not required to provide your address to OSMF. Assoc. Members are allowed to vote in (nearly all) OSMF elections. They cannot be candidates for the OSMF Board though. Assoc. Membership was created because of the privacy concerns with regular âlegal membershipâ.
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Thanks for the information, I am now an OSMF member. I would kindly suggest to change the OSMF membership page in a way that better reflects these requirements.
A minimal change would to to write "These members have to submit their full name and a residential address in our register of members. " Also adding a FAQ section about this referencing the legal requirements mentioned by @Russ might be a good idea too.
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Thereâs not an easy way to suggest changes to the OSMF site. I suggest the paragraph here is changed to:
Normal Members are members as mentioned in the UK Companies Act. These members must provide their full name and a postal address where they can receive registered mail, to be added to the register of members. While OSMF will not actively publish the register, it can be inspected by the public under the Companies Act. Also, normal members are liable for up to ÂŁ1 (one pound) if the Foundation is wound up.
Iâm fairly sure thereâs nothing in law which says it has to be a residential address.
While Iâm here - regarding the âit can be inspected by the publicâ thing: there are very limited cases where someone would have a valid reason to do so, particularly considering the GDPR. Organisations Iâve been involved with before have used the following policies:
- If a member asks to inspect the register of members for governance purposes (e.g. if they wish to exercise their right to call a general meeting), and the request is not clearly vexatious, the board should offer to send an email to all members on behalf of that member.
- In all other cases, the board will apply to the court to determine whether the request is for a âproper purposeâ under s117.
A public policy such as this would provide more reassurance about how these details will get used.
Iâll drop an email to membership@osmfoundation.org and point them at this thread.
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This seems a sensible summary.
I have seen companies formed under the existing regime where the membersâ addresses were given as the lawyerâs office. These were major law firms, so I think we can conclude that as the legislation requires only an âaddressâ, it neednât be a personal, residential address.
This provision is not yet in force: expected Q1 2025, but that info is not strong.
However, given that any regulatory heat is generally tempered by pragmatism and the public interest, itâs hard to imagine Companies House obsessing over the details - so acting on the basis of the new law, even though itâs not yet in force, is highly unlikely to be a problem.
Section 113(7) imposes criminal liability on the company and every officer (ie, the board and - if any - the secretary) if the register is not correctly maintained. At the moment this is a strict liability offence, but an amendment has been made, not yet in force, which provides for a âreasonable excuseâ to be a defence. [EDIT: removed ref to burden of proof; not sure enough of that]
In support of this duty, companies will soon be allowed to demand members give information for the register. A member who does not respond will have committed an offence. I suggest this neednât alarm OSMF members: the legislation is mostly to deal with Londonâs deserved reputation as the laundromat of Europe.
A company has only five days to do this, and the presumption in the Act is for disclosure. It would be fabulously expensive, with liability for the requesterâs costs if they win. The court must be satisfied that the info would not be used for a âproper purposeâ. The most obvious evidence of purpose is the purpose stated by the requester. Given there is a presumption of good faith in law, it would be hard to demonstrate anything contrary.
Oh, it looks like legislation.gov.uk got it wrong in this case. At any rate âservice addressâ is a subset of what was previously required (which was just an âaddressâ.)
To my knowledge that only means that the register has a name and address for each member. Thereâs no duty on the company to ensure that the address meets the requirements (which would be extremely onerous) - that duty is on the member (s113G).
Never! 
Iâve known them put commas in the wrong place, but nothing worse. In their usual meticulous way, theyâve explained the situation here.
There appears to be no such duty at the moment (which dictators and their henchmen everywhere are grateful for), but that will change as soon as the enabling regulations are made:
113(1) Every company must keep a register of members
113(2) (as amended) Register must include the required information
113A Required info includes service address
1141 Service address means âan address at which documents may be effectively servedâ
113(7) Company and officers commit an offence if, without reasonable excuse, register does not include the required info.
The heavier burden on the company and directors is (presumably) why the company will be able to compel info from a member on pain of criminal sanction. This is quite an extraordinary power, normally reserved for public authorities - and not all of those, either.
Given a company will have these powers, it seems unlikely the directors will have a âreasonable excuseâ for the register being inaccurate it they havenât made use of them, where necessary.
Honestly as we discuss it here, I think it would be worth someone finding some legal commentary on the changes. I was of the view that the changes make life much easier for OSMF and privacy-conscious members, but I think thereâs a small chance life will be more difficult. I hope to visit a law library in January anyway, so I will see what I can turn up.
(My apologies to everyone else following this thread for it devolving into utter legal nerdery.)
Itâs technically correct, but itâs confusing because the end result is that it looks like that amendment has been commenced when it actually hasnât. (Wholly uncommenced amendments donât usually appear in the live act on legislation.gov.uk.) Iâll happily blame that on whoever drafted the commencement section of the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act though.
I was assuming those clauses you quoted were also in force, due to the aforementioned commencement confusion, but I was giving them a more charitable reading than you were.
However, para 335 of the explanatory notes says, in reference to s113F:
This will help companies ensure the information required to be included in its register of members is included. It is a discretionary power which may be used, for example, if a company believes the information is not up to date. This section does not require a company to validate or verify the information provided in response to a notice.
Notably s113F does not require the notice to be sent by post. So if you periodically remind members by email that they should check their postal address is up to date (on pain of prosecution!), I reckon youâre in compliance.
As you suggest, non-profits surely arenât the target of these clauses, but Iâm sure they could have drafted these changes in a less scary way.
As an aside, I had forgotten about s120A which will hopefully clarify that issue of when requesting the register of members is allowed, once they get around to laying some regulationsâŚ
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