The Government of Canada announced today that most of Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation ("CASL") will come into force on July 1st, 2014.  After that date, organizations will either have to have the prior consent of intended recipients of "commercial electronic messages", or ensure that the messages being sent, or the recipients of those messages, are exempt from the requirements to get consent.

As part of the announcement, the Government also published the final version of the Electronic Commerce Protection Regulations (link at:  http://fightspam.gc.ca/eic/site/030.nsf/eng/h_00211.html ).  Readers of this blog will recall Bob Pakrul's blog post  in January of this year advising that those Regulations had been published for comment.   Numerous comments were received and many were incorporated into the revised Regulations which were published today.   Some of the most important revisions to the Regulations are as follows:

Expansion of Exclusions for Consent Requirements

The Regulations exclude commercial electronic messages from all provisions of CASL if:

  • they are sent within an organization;
  • they are sent between organizations that already have a relationship, if the message concerns the activities of the organization to which the message was sent;
  • they are sent on platforms where identification and unsubscribe information is conspicuously published and readily available to users, and where duplication of an unsubscribe or identification message would be repetitious;
  • they are sent and received within limited access secure and confidential accounts (such as messages which a bank might send to an account holder);
  • they are sent in response to a complaint, inquiry or request;
  • they are sent on behalf of registered charities for fundraising purposes; or
  • they are sent on behalf of a political party or candidate and have as their main purpose the solicitation of donations.

Delayed Implementation

In an attempt to alleviate some of the impact on business  that might occur if all of CASL come into effect at once, the Government has also delayed the implementation of two important elements of the legislation.  First, the provisions of CASL which govern the installation of computer programs on a person's computer system in the course of a commercial activity without consent, are delayed until January 15, 2015.  Second, the coming into force of the provisions which give individuals a right to sue an organization for a breach of CASL, are delayed until July 1, 2017.

Next Steps

Organizations who have been putting off seeking consents which would allow them to continue to send legitimate commercial electronic messages to, for example, potential customers or industry contacts, should be developing and implementing a consent campaign in earnest, so that consents have been obtained prior to July 1st of next year.

The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.