I have just read this and wondered if anyone was aware of it, and does it include payroll bureaus and MIP's who process payroll for their clients??
" Following a recent court case involving Google inc. v Vidal-Hall, the Court of Appeal have clarified the rules under the Data Protection Act 1988 (DPA). This means that you could now face court for emailing payslips.Previously, a compensation claim could only be made if a breach of the DPA resulted in financial loss. This meant that claims could not be made against any stressful or embarrassing consequences of a data breach.
The Court of Appeal ruled that this was unfair and clause 13 of the DPA now states that financial loss no longer needs to be shown for compensation claims for any impact upon the individual that could be seen as emotional.
The impact that this now has on businesses is the effect upon the emailing of payslips and P60s. While this practice is generally frowned upon anyway, there are still businesses that adopt this practice and now there is law to prevent it from continuing.
Having someone intercept a payslip or P60 that has been emailed to someone counts as a breach of DPA and an invasion of privacy meaning that, that person will have a cause for claim against their employer.
John Warchus, partner at commercial and technology law firm Moore Blatch said that "accountants should urgently review their data protection procedures and strengthen where necessary as more compensation claims are likely and the amount of damages awarded is also likely to increase".
