CASL Update

In 2004, Canada's Federal Task Force on Spam began drafting legislation on spam policies. With approval from the Treasury Board of Canada President Tony Clement on November 28, 2013, new Canadian Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL) was approved and the final regulations were published on December 18, 2013. The law goes into effect July 1, 2014.

There are major changes and enforcement policies that need to be considered when sending to or from Canadian email addresses or mobile communications. Any organization that markets via electronic outbound communication needs to understand the policies and how they will be enforced to avoid running afoul of the new regulations.

To summarize:

1. You are required to obtain consent from recipients to send commercial electronic messages to their email accounts (of all varieties), as well as text message transmissions to mobile phones. This is not much of a change from email best practices, but it will now be enforced. If you do not have permission to send to Canada-based subscribers, you are potentially violating this condition of CASL legislation, which may result in legal action and fines.
2. You must also be clear upon sign-up as to what subscribers are signing up for: how frequently they will receive messages related to the sign-up, your privacy policy and data protection notices, and how to opt out of future mailings.
3. You must have records of consent for all individuals on your mailing lists. Email addresses cannot be collected through programs or bots that harvest addresses or obtained through any unconfirmed manner like list rentals and purchases.

While the law may intend to apply to companies outside of Canada, it’s not clear what actions U.S. and international governments will take in terms of enforcement. While there may be limited effective enforcement on the criminal side, there may be broader implications on the civil side (under private right-of-action). Expect the relevant courts of jurisdiction to rule on these issues after the law is in effect.