As mentioned in a previous article, Canada is no-nonsense when it comes to protecting the privacy of its citizens.  To join the new host of data protection laws this year is Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (hereinafter “CASL”), a national law aimed at ending the most invasive types of spam for Canadians include identity theft, phishing and spyware. The hope is to drive spamming out of Canada in an effort to protect e-commerce within the country. The legislation has been in the works for years and will certainly have big impact on businesses that are based in or operate in Canada, including those that e-advertise within the country.

Whilst a final date has yet to be set for the legislation to come into effect, it is thought that it will be effective in June 2014. CASL will impact companies and individuals alike who employ digital and electronic marketing, be it SMSing, e-mailing and installing computer programmes without consent but does exclude telemarketing. Sending marketing information without prior consent will be a thing of the past, except for some slim situations where consent is implied from previous dealings or personal relationships, for example. Whilst PIPEDA (please see article titled: “Canadian Courts to Businesses: We Do Not Take Privacy Violations Lightly” posted on 13 January 2014) consent may have been received by some, CASL consent is completely different and inferred consent will not be derived from PIPEDA consent. Different from the US’s CAN-SPAM legislation, Canada’s CASL is an “opt-in” system, though consent can be revoked at anytime thus the requirement for the “unsubscribe” feature.

Upon the regulations coming into effect, businesses may have a grace period to reach compliance, but there are massive benefits to being compliant beforehand. The penalties for non-compliance are not cheap: up to $10-million for companies and up to $1-million for individuals. This law does apply to marketers outside of Canada, so being current with this legislation could save businesses trouble even where they are not based or established.

Please contact us to get a list of services we can offer your entire business in becoming CASL compliant in order to best avoid any penalisation for non-compliance. Moreover, we can help in the obtaining of consent from potential Canadian clients.