What is Representa and what does it do? – REPRESENTA Administrations

What is the Representa?

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

This record is shared by all of them; that is to say, it is not an individual or independent record, which entails joint responsibility for 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 qualified officials

What is an Electronic Register of Powers of Attorney?

The Electronic Register of Powers of Attorney, created by Law 39/2015 (article 6), makes it possible to record the representations that citizens, professionals and companies grant to third parties to act on their behalf before Public Administrations.

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

The answer is no, given that:

Associations are non-profit entities, formed voluntarily 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 entities). Therefore, the register of associations is not a register of powers of attorney like 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 mandatory interoperability with the Representa
In addition, the person who has contributed a power of attorney to that register of associations has done so for a specific purpose. The incorporation of the Local Registry into the Representa conflicts with data protection as the purpose of the treatment for which the data was collected changes.
Finally, even if it is 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
validation circuit of the registered power of attorney

Is Representa an administrative record?

No.

Law 39/2015, of October 1, on 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 RD 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 administrative registration.

In the area 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).

In a similar way, and for the case of the electronic register of powers of the General Administration of the State, RD 203/2021, of March 30, provides that it is not public (art. 33.4). In addition, it determines that "...the interested party will only be able to access the information of the powers of attorney of those who are the power of attorney", which "shields" the personal data contained in these records.

The above allows you to keep a separate register and not have to make entry entries of the power of attorney documentation; therefore, only legal and voluntary representations can be registered in REPRESENTA, leaving out of its scope the entry (and exit) entries of documents.

Is Representa integrated with other proxy registries?

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

In relation to the integrations with the Mercantile and Property Registry, the 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 registries.

This integration is important for the organizations that use the service, because the 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 registration of powers of attorney and the power of attorney documents that accompany registration applications.

In this sense, to minimize the risk of validating powers of representation that have been revoked by subsequent power of attorneys (which are not attached to the application), REPRESENTA is integrated with the General Council of Notaries allowing the consultation of subsistence of the accompanying powers. Thus, a consultation is carried out with the General Council of the Notary and it validates the validity of the deeds and powers of attorney. The consultation of the power of attorney is carried out both at the time of registration (which also allows you to download a simple copy of the power of attorney) 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 legally valid ways to prove that one person is a representative of another (Art.5 law 39/2015).

Enrollment in the same 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 who requests a parking card with reduced mobility for his father).

So, what can be done if an instance is presented to the General Registry containing a specific representation that has as its sole purpose the completion of 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 is the holder has already accredited before a certification authority that he represents the corresponding legal entity, and therefore the certificate allows him to act in name and representation of this legal entity.

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 the Representa, in the case of representations that they are not exhausted by the same administrative action, while informing of its effects and duration. Work is underway to provide a model to incorporate into the electronic forms, which will be incorporated into the Representa implementation guide.

Will the custody be guaranteed for the entire mandatory legal period?

They are kept for the validity period and then deleted in 90 days. You have it in the specific terms of service

Can representations be granted to do the idCAT?

In Representa, representations cannot be registered for the proxy to request the idCAT (certificate or mobile) in the name of the proxy.

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

The above is excepted 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 notarized signature.

As you can see, these are two highly valued cases where there is reliable evidence of identity verification, which cannot be transferred to REPRESENTA powers.