Case Nos: IL-2023-000080 and IL-2024-000038 - [2025] EWHC 2561 (Ch)

The PAF contains about 32 million addresses, known in the trade as delivery points or DPs, and about 1.8 million postcodes. It is updated almost every day. Its primary purpose from RMG’s point of view is to allow use of the postcodes to ensure that letters and parcels are passed to appropriate regional mail centres, from there to a local delivery office and then to a ‘walk’, which is the route used by a postman or postwoman for delivering mail. There are on average about 400 DPs per walk. Self-evidently, for this to work smoothly the addresses and especially the postcodes must be accurate and up to date.

RMG licenses the PAF for a fee and has done so since the 1980s. Licensees divide into ‘end users’ who use the PAF for internal purposes only, typically to update and maintain the accuracy of their own customer database, and ‘solutions providers’ who incorporate the PAF into their software which is marketed to others.