You're emailing twenty payslips, one per employee. Last month you cc'd the wrong person on one of them and the awkward conversation took an hour. This month, every payslip goes out password-protected.
Payroll is the single most leak-prone PDF category. Password protection is the cheapest insurance.
Why payroll needs protection
Salaries, deductions, NI numbers, and tax codes are personal data under GDPR. A misdirected payslip is a reportable incident. Password protection means even if the file lands in the wrong inbox, it doesn't open. The bar to a breach gets meaningfully higher.
Choose the password format
Common conventions: employee's date of birth in DDMMYYYY format, last four digits of NI number, or a randomly generated string sent by separate channel. Date of birth is convenient but guessable; random strings are most secure but require communicating the password. Match the format to your risk tolerance and communication setup.
Apply the password
Use password protect and set the chosen password. The PDF can be opened only with the password. Save the protected version with a clear filename — `Smith_Payslip_Jan2026.pdf` — and send.
Communicate the password safely
Never put the password in the email body that contains the file. Send the password via a separate channel — a text message, a phone call, or a separate email at a different time. The whole point of the password is breaking the link between file and key; defeating that with a one-email-fits-all approach is pointless.
FAQ
Is date-of-birth a strong enough password?
For payroll, it's typically acceptable — the employee always knows their own date of birth. For higher-risk data, use a random string.
What if the employee forgets the password?
Resend with the same convention. Don't change the password format mid-year — employees rely on consistency.
Can HMRC open password-protected payroll PDFs?
For RTI submissions, payroll data is submitted electronically — not via PDF. PDFs are for employee distribution and internal records.
Should P60s be password-protected too?
Yes — P60s contain the same sensitive data as payslips and warrant the same protection.
Twenty payslips, twenty passwords, zero misdirected breaches. Protect your payroll PDFs in Flint.