Nominet Data Validation

From May 2014 Nominet (the registrar for .UK domains such as .co.uk and .org.uk) introduced new Data Quality checks designed to ensure that all domain registrations in their namespace have a valid name and address associated with their registration.

In order to do this Nominet validates all UK addresses against the Royal Mail Postcode Address File (PAF), to establish that the address supplied is sufficient to uniquely identify the address the domain is registered to. If the details supplied are not sufficient to accomplish this then the address will not be validated.

A similar process is completed against name information, using a database of 40 million electoral roll and business records.

While both name and address data must be individually validated, they are not required to necessarily be linked together (so a company name need not necessarily need to link to the head office address registered with Companies House, a branch office would be fine as long as the address validates).

If the name or address does not validate then Nominet will notify Freeola, and we will attempt to validate the data supplied against the criteria below, and if we are unable to do so contact the registrant in an attempt to either verify the data supplied or to update the registrant data to data that can be validated. If a domain is not able to be validated within 30 days then a Data Quality Lock is applied and the domain will not function until the data is able to be validated.

For more information, details of Nominet's Data Quality Policy can be read directly on their website.

For registrations to individuals, we can validate Name or Address against:

• Electoral Roll

• Postal File (such as Royal Mail)

• Credit Checking Database

• Billing Data

• Personal Knowledge of registrant

• Valid Driving License (if address is included)

• Valid national ID cards (for non-UK) (if address is included)

• Utility bill (from the last 3 months)

• Bank statement (from the last 3 months)

• HMRC tax notification

• Valid Passport (Name only)

For Businesses we can validate Name or Address against

• Postal File (such as Royal Mail)

• Credit Checking Database

• Companies House

• Business Directory

• Billing Data

• Personal Knowledge of registrant

• Utility bill (from the last 3 months)

• Bank statement (from the last 3 months)

• HMRC tax notification

• Valid Passport (Name only)

• Official Letterhead

• Company stamp or seal