Artículo · Suport AOC

What is Representa?

Representa is a common electronic register of powers of attorney that AOC makes available to the Administration of the Generalitat de Catalunya, the local Entities of Catalonia and the public bodies and entities under public law linked to or dependent on the above.

This register is shared by all of them; that is, it is not an individual or independent register, which entails co-responsibility in the processing of the personal data contained therein.

The Representa is not:

An administrative record (more information in the section “Is Representa an administrative record?”)
A register of authorized officials

What is an Electronic Registry of Powers of Attorney?

The Electronic Registry of Powers of Attorney, created by Law 39/2015 (article 6), allows the representation that citizens, professionals and companies grant to third parties to act on their behalf before Public Administrations to be recorded.

Does Representa allow the incorporation of representations collected in municipal association registers?

The answer is no, given that:

Associations are non-profit entities, voluntarily constituted by three or more people to fulfill a purpose of general or particular interest, through the pooling of personal or patrimonial resources on a temporary or indefinite basis (Article 321-1 of LAW 4/2008, of April 24, of the third book of the Civil Code of Catalonia, relating to legal persons). Therefore, the association register is not a register of powers of attorney such as the Mercantile, Property, etc. and, that is, it is not considered to be one of the registers that article 6 of 39/2015 calls “similar”. Consequently, there is no obligation for interoperability with the Representa
Furthermore, the person who has provided a power of attorney to that association register has done so for a specific purpose. The incorporation of the Local Register into the Representa conflicts with data protection since the purpose of the processing for which the data was collected changes.
Finally, although technically feasible, this data incorporation breaks with the validation circuit that has been established in the Representa service.

For the possible incorporation of other types of records, it will be necessary to analyze:

nature of the record
purpose of data collection
registered power of attorney validation circuit

Is Representa an administrative record?

No.

Law 39/2015, of October 1, on the common administrative procedure of public administrations, separately regulates the general electronic register of powers of attorney (art. 6) from the general electronic register (art. 16), for the presentation of documents.

This distinction comes from Royal Decree 1671/2009, of November 6 (art.15, repealed), which, in development of Law 11/2007, of June 22, orders the creation of this register and expressly denies that it has the character of an administrative register.

In the scope of the Administration of the Generalitat, Order GRI/79/2015, of April 10, also declares that this register does not have the character of an administrative register (art. 4).

Similarly, and in the case of the electronic register of powers of attorney of the General State Administration, RD 203/2021, of March 30, establishes that it is not public (art.33.4). In addition, it determines that “…the interested party may only access the information on the powers of attorney of which he is the principal or the person represented”, which “shields” the personal data contained in these registers.

The above allows a separate register to be kept and does not require input entries for the power of attorney documentation; therefore, only legal and voluntary representations can be registered in REPRESENTA, leaving input (and output) entries for documents outside its scope.

Is Representa integrated with other power of attorney registries?

The integration with APODERA is in progress, we will soon inform you of its progress.

In relation to integrations with the Commercial and Property Registry, integrations with these civil registries are pending evaluation by the bodies responsible for these civil registries to the extent that it may lead to a conflict with the purpose of these registers.

This integration is important for entities that use the service, because interested parties are responsible for the veracity of the documents they provide (art.28.7 of Law 39/2015, of October 1), also in the case of the electronic registry of powers of attorney and the deeds of powers that accompany registration applications.

In this sense, to minimize the risk of validating powers of representation that have been revoked by subsequent power of attorney deeds (which are not accompanied by the application), REPRESENTA is integrated with the General Council of Notaries allowing the consultation of the existence of the powers that accompany it. Thus, a consultation is made with the General Council of Notaries and validates the validity of the deeds and powers. The consultation of the existence of powers of attorney is carried out both during registration (which also allows a simple copy of the power of attorney to be downloaded) and in the specific consultation of a power of attorney between two people on a specific date to carry out a specific action.

Is registration mandatory in order to accredit a representation?

The Representa is only one of the different valid ways in law to prove that a person is a representative of another (Art.5 Law 39/2015).

Registration is recommended in cases of repeated actions by one person on behalf of another (e.g. a manager who must carry out multiple procedures on behalf of a client); however, we do not recommend registration when the representation ends with the completion of the specific procedure (e.g. the case of a child requesting a parking card with reduced mobility for his father).

So, what can be done if an instance is presented to the General Registry where a specific representation is recorded that has the exclusive purpose of carrying out that specific procedure or procedure? (“More information in the section "Practical recommendations on registrations").

Registration is also unnecessary in the case of representative certificates given that the natural person who holds them has already accredited before a certification authority that they represent the corresponding legal person, and therefore the certificate allows them to act in the name and representation of this legal person.

In this sense, when a public administration detects a representation by another means, either in person or electronically, it is considered good practice to offer interested parties the possibility of registering the representation in Representa, in the case of representations that are not exhausted with the same administrative action, while informing them of its effects and duration. Work is being done to offer a model to incorporate into electronic forms, which will be incorporated into the Representa implementation guide.

Will custody be guaranteed throughout the mandatory legal period?

They are kept for the validity period and then deleted after 90 days. You can find this in the specific terms of service.

Can representations be granted to take the idCAT?

Representations cannot be registered in Representa so that the proxy can request the idCAT (certificate or mobile) in the name of the principal.

In accordance with regulatory regulations, obtaining electronic signature mechanisms must be done in person by the interested person; that is, it is a very personal act that involves going to a public administration.

An exception to the above is when the interested party uses another digital certificate to request the certificate (digitally) or a third party brings the application form with the interested party's signature notarized.

As can be seen, these are two highly rated cases where there is reliable evidence of identity verification, which are not transferable to the powers of REPRESENTA.

What is Representa and what does it do?