(2 min read)
In Farley v Paymaster (1836) Limited the High Court had to consider data protection claims brought by a group of over 400 pension scheme members whose benefit statements had been sent to the wrong address. The High Court struck out the claims where the letters had been returned unopened or where there was no positive evidence that the letters had been opened and read. The only claims allowed to proceed were those where the claimants could provide positive evidence that their benefit statement letter had been opened and read. In most of these cases the letter had been opened by a family member still living at the old address, and there was no evidence of further unauthorised use of the information. The judge considered that even these claims appeared to be "very far from being serious cases", but decided that they should nevertheless be allowed to go to trial rather than being struck out without a full hearing. We think this is an important case for pension scheme trustees, scheme administrators, and for any organisation that sends out personalised financial information to individuals.
The High Court has struck out the vast majority of claims brought by a group of over 400 pension scheme members after a scheme administrator sent benefit statements to their old addresses (Farley v Paymaster (1836) Limited).
Facts of the case
The claimants were all current or former Sussex police officers. Despite having been notified in each case of the claimant's change of address, the scheme administrator inadvertently sent the statements to the claimants' old addresses. Broadly, each benefit statement contained the claimant's name, date of birth, National Insurance number, and salary and pension details. It would have been apparent from the benefit statement that the scheme member concerned was a police officer.
The matter was reported to the Information Commissioner (ICO) who ultimately decided to take no further action. The ICO noted Sussex Police's conclusion that the members were unlikely to suffer significant consequences as a result of the incident given the limited nature of the data disclosed and the fact that each benefit statement had only been sent to one identifiable household. However, the claimants brought proceedings against the scheme administrator in which they sought compensation for breach of data protection legislation.
The court's conclusions
The judge held that the cases in which the benefit statement had been returned unopened did not disclose reasonable grounds for bringing a data protection claim and would accordingly be struck out. The judge then considered cases where the benefit statement had not been returned to the claimant and the claimant was therefore inferring that the benefit statement had been opened and read by a third party. The judge held that there was no basis on which to draw an inference that those benefit statements had been opened and read. He accordingly struck out those cases too.
Only 14 of the claimants could produce positive evidence that their benefit statement was opened. Most of those cases involved the benefit statement being opened by a family member of the claimant because a parent of the claimant was still living at the address to which the statement had been sent. In none of those cases were the claimants aware of any further unauthorised use of their information. Based on the information put forward by the claimants, the judge considered that the claims appeared to be "very far from being serious cases". However, he concluded that those claims should nevertheless be allowed to proceed to trial rather than being struck out without a full hearing.
Our thoughts
This case indicates that scheme members are unlikely to be able to bring successful data protection claims solely on the basis of a benefit statement being sent to a wrong address where there is no evidence that this has resulted in the unauthorised use of data. However, the case also illustrates that sending benefit statements to the wrong address may result in scheme members seeking to bring claims for compensation, even where there is no obvious evidence of the member having suffered any harm.
