Scheme administrators who sent benefit statements to old addresses not liable for data misuse

Pension scheme administrators are not liable for misuse of data by sending benefit statements to the wrong addresses

In Farley v Paymaster (1836) Ltd [2024] EWHC 383 (KB), the High Court has struck out the vast majority of the claims brought by over 400 police officers against the administrators of their police pension scheme, for misuse of private information and breach of data protection law, following the sending of annual benefit statements to members using out-of-date addresses.  All but 14 of the claims were struck out because there was no evidence that the statements had been opened and read by any third parties. The mere sending of the statements to the wrong addresses was held not to be sufficient to establish the claim.

The full judgment can be read here.