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LEGAL · LAST UPDATED JUNE 3, 2026

PAF® End User Terms

About these terms

These PAF® End User Terms govern your use of Royal Mail Postcode Address File (PAF) data that you access through Postio. They are required by Royal Mail and form part of your agreement with us (see our Terms of service at postio.co.uk/terms). "We", "us" and "Postio" mean Onno Group Limited, a licensed Royal Mail PAF Solutions Provider. "You" are the End User: the single legal entity we permit to use PAF data through Postio. "Royal Mail" means Royal Mail Group Limited, acting by its Address Management Unit. By using the address service you accept these terms, and you must make sure your authorised Users keep to them too.

Definitions

  • PAF data — Royal Mail's Postcode Address File database (including the Alias File), reached through the Postio service.
  • Solution — the Postio service and any Postio product or output that benefits from or includes PAF data, in whatever form.
  • User — an individual you authorise to use the Solution through your account.
  • Data Extraction — extracting PAF data, or any part of it, to generate new address records in a new or existing database. Extracted Data is the data that results.
  • Cleansed data — your own existing records that you've validated, corrected or completed against PAF data.
  • Substantially All Database — a database that, on its own or combined with another, contains all or substantially all the addresses in the UK, or in England, Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland.
  • Working Day — Monday to Friday excluding bank and public holidays in England.

1. Your permitted use

You may use PAF data within the Solution for your own business purposes — typically capturing, verifying, correcting or completing address details — in line with these terms. You must not make copies of PAF data except as these terms allow, or as reasonably necessary for back-up, security, business continuity and system testing.

2. Conditions of use

When you use PAF data, all of the following apply:

  • Don't display or communicate PAF data to the public, except to capture or confirm the address details of the people you're dealing with.
  • Don't transfer, assign, sell or license PAF data, the Solution, or your right to use them, to anyone else.
  • Don't use the Solution to create a product or service for a third party that relies on any use of PAF data — including copying, looking up, publishing, searching, analysing, modifying or reformatting it.
  • Don't copy, reproduce, extract, reutilise or publish PAF data or the Solution, except as these terms expressly allow.
  • Use PAF data and the Solution in line with applicable law.

3. Data extraction

You may use PAF data for Data Extraction, but any Extracted Data may only be accessed by your Users, and must not be supplied, or made accessible, to any third party.

4. Supplying cleansed data

You may give Cleansed data (your own records cleaned against PAF data) to third parties, provided that — where those records amount to a Substantially All Database — you don't hold them out as a master, original or comprehensive address database; you only supply them in the course of your normal business and not as a business in its own right; and you include a clear notice that the data has been cleansed against PAF data. Supplying cleansed data as a paid bureau service has extra Royal Mail conditions — talk to us first.

5. Your authorised Users

You must make sure these terms bind your Users; that only your Users use PAF data and the Solution; and that if your right to use them ends, your Users' rights end at the same time.

6. Subcontracting

You may let a subcontractor use PAF data only as far as needed to provide IT services to you, or to act on your behalf — in each case for your own business and not the subcontractor's. The subcontractor must agree to keep to these terms, and you stay responsible for any breach by them.

7. These rights are personal

Your rights under these terms are personal, limited and non-transferable.

8. Royal Mail's intellectual property

Royal Mail owns all intellectual property rights in PAF data and the PAF brand. You get no rights in them beyond what these terms grant. You must not remove any Royal Mail ownership or IP notice, and you must not present the Solution as endorsed or approved by Royal Mail.

9. Records and audit

You must keep accurate records of your use of PAF data and keep them for at least 6 years after the relevant use. On reasonable notice, you must let Royal Mail and us (or our agents) audit those records — and, where relevant, the premises and systems where PAF data is used — to check compliance. You must place the same record-keeping and audit obligations on anyone you allow to use PAF data on your behalf. If an audit shows you haven't complied, you'll cover the reasonable costs of that audit.

10. If our Royal Mail licence ends

If our licence with Royal Mail ends for any reason, we'll tell you. Your right to use PAF data then continues only until the last day of the wind-down period Royal Mail allows (currently up to 12 months from the end date). After that you must stop using PAF data and destroy any copies you hold, and confirm in writing within 7 days that you've done so — though you may keep one copy purely to check compliance, meet a legal or regulatory requirement, or for legal proceedings.

11. Enforcement and termination

If you breach these terms and the breach can be fixed, we'll ask you to fix it; if you don't within 20 Working Days, then on Royal Mail's request we must end your right to use PAF data. Where Royal Mail requires it, or where the breach can't be fixed, we may suspend or end your access immediately. Royal Mail may also enforce these terms against you directly and recover its losses, and you agree it has that right under the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999. If your non-compliance causes Royal Mail to charge or penalise us, you'll reimburse us that amount on request.

12. No warranty

Royal Mail does not warrant that PAF data is accurate, complete, or fit for any particular purpose — and neither do we. PAF data is provided as-is, as a best-effort snapshot of Royal Mail's files. Don't rely on it as your sole basis for a legal, safety or financial decision without your own checks.

13. Governing law

These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales have jurisdiction over any dispute about them or about your use of PAF data.