Terms of use

What this is

The Governance Register compiles public records - the Charity Commission register, Companies House (Free Company Data and the PSC register), and the Cabinet Office public bodies directory - into one searchable view of who governs Britain. It is an independent publication and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or operated on behalf of any of those bodies.

Accuracy, and what the register is not

Every record here comes from a public register and is reproduced as held, not as live filings. Records may be out of date, incomplete, or wrong at source. We correct what we can when it is reported, but we do not warrant that any record is accurate or current.

Do not use the register as the sole basis for a decision about a person, whether hiring, lending, contracting or otherwise. It is a research tool built on public data, not a verification, screening or due-diligence service, and it is not a credit reference agency.

If a record about you is wrong, tell us and we will check it against the source register. Changing the underlying public record means contacting the Charity Commission or Companies House directly.

Your account

Accounts are free and personal to one named individual. Do not share your sign-in link or let anyone else use your account, and tell us if you think someone else has access to it.

Provide accurate details when you sign up. An account registered under a false name or a misrepresented organisation may be suspended.

Fair use

A free account includes a monthly research allowance, currently 600 profile views and 300 path searches, which resets each month. The allowance exists so the register stays available to everyone, not so a single account can take a copy of it.

Our rights in the register

The individual records here come from public registers. The compilation is our work: the matching of millions of records to single identities, the connections drawn between them, and the register as a whole. That work is protected by copyright and database right, and those rights are not waived by the underlying facts being public.

You may cite the register and link to it freely. You may not extract or reuse a substantial part of it, or repeatedly extract insubstantial parts of it, whether by scraping, by export, or by any other means.

This does not affect ordinary indexing by search engines and AI crawlers; see Acceptable use below.

Acceptable use

The register publishes information about real, named people. Please use it accordingly.

You must not:

• extract, copy or harvest the register in bulk, whether by hand, by script, or by any other automated means
• create or use multiple accounts to get around fair-use allowances
• circumvent or interfere with rate limits, access controls, or any other technical measure on the site
• republish, resell or redistribute the data as a dataset, database or competing product
• use the register to harass, stalk, intimidate, profile or target any individual
• use contact details found here to send bulk or unsolicited marketing

Search engines and AI crawlers are welcome on our public pages, subject to robots.txt. This section is about account holders taking copies of the register, not about ordinary indexing.

Suspension

We may suspend or close an account that breaches these terms. Where it is practical and appropriate, we will tell you why.

Liability

The register is provided as it is, without warranties of any kind. To the extent the law allows, WhatLabs Ltd is not liable for any loss arising from your use of the register or from reliance on any record it holds. Nothing here limits liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud, or for anything else that cannot lawfully be limited.

Changes

We may update these terms. The date at the top shows when they last changed, and continuing to use the site after a change means you accept the updated terms.

Contact

hello@whatlabs.org

Governing law

These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales have exclusive jurisdiction.