Company authentication code hidden in Company Secretarial & Accounts Production

Overall part of the legislation is safeguarding personal data and what we have done is to make sure passwords are encrypted so should a person gain access to your data whether directly in the software or through the SQL database behind the scenes, they couldn’t then use those passwords to gain access to other systems. The intention of this was to encrypt passwords such as those used to access the online bookkeeping packages and Companies House presenter details. The Company Authentication Code was swept up in this change as it is effectively a password that can be used to gain access to a Companies details including its officers through the Companies House website. As the company authentication code is a password to access clients data through the Companies House web service and then used to submit data on behalf of that company, it is seen to be sensitive information, that should not be freely available especially with the upcoming GDPR legislation coming in later next month. We did not anticipate people would be using IRIS to store and retrieve passwords such as this, it is only in the system so people can submit documents through IRIS and we expected passwords to be stored somewhere else designed with that purpose in mind. Along with all passwords in IRIS that can be used to access third party systems it has been obscured. Since we have had a number of comments, we have investigated this further, concentrating on this one code and have discussed it with our GDPR expert. We have established that this is the accountants data and therefore you should be able to access it through the software. In our release due out week commencing the 8th May, the code will be available to view under Edit as it was before. However we do recommend you ensure access to IRIS and your data is as secure as possible to prevent the codes making their way into the wrong hands. Until the service pack is released, it is possible to run the customisable report within Company Secretarial and view the code, this can be done by following the steps below: – View client – Click print – Click customisable report