The Charitable Incorporated Organisations (General) Regulations 2012

Interpretation: hard copy, electronic form and related expressions

4.—(1) The following provisions apply for the purposes of these Regulations.

(2) A document or information is sent or supplied in hard copy form if it is sent or supplied in a paper copy or similar form capable of being read and references to “hard copy” in these Regulations have a corresponding meaning.

(3) A document or information is sent or supplied in electronic form if it is sent or supplied—

(a) by electronic means (for example, by e-mail or fax); or

(b) by any other means whilst in electronic form (for example, sending a disk by post).

(4) A document or information is sent or supplied by electronic means if it is—

(a) sent initially and received at its destination by means of electronic equipment for the processing (which expression includes digital compression) or storage of data; and

(b) entirely transmitted, conveyed and received by wire, by radio, by optical means or by other electromagnetic means,

and references to “electronic means” in these Regulations have a corresponding meaning.

(5) A document or information authorised or required to be sent or supplied in electronic form must be sent or supplied in a form, and by a means, that the sender or supplier reasonably considers will enable the recipient—

(a) to read it; and

(b) to retain a copy of it.

(6) For the purposes of this regulation, a document or information can be read only if—

(a) it can be read with the naked eye; or

(b) to the extent that it consists of images (for example, photographs, pictures, maps, plans or drawings), it can be seen with the naked eye.

(7) The provisions of this regulation apply whether the provision of these Regulations in question uses the words “sent” or “supplied” or uses other words (such as “deliver”, “provide” “produce”, “transmit” or, in the case of notice, “give”) to refer to the sending or supplying of a document or information.