CANADA’S ANTI-SPAM LAW (CASL)
Regulations & Bulletins
Articles & Provisions
In Fines Imposed
Registered Complaints
“Commercial electronic messages are the primary source of what prompts Canadians to report cases that require follow-up investigation—commercial email messages that you or your organisation may be responsible for sending. Email messages account for more than three-quarters of incidents reported to us.“
The Canadian Anti-Spam Law regulates all commercial electronic messages:
Commercial: communication that promotes a transaction or commercial activity, even if a transaction takes place or not.
Electronic: communication that can be read on an electronic device.
Message: communication to one or more people.
A message may be commercial even if it is not promotional. And each message must meet all the requirements of CASL, even if it’s a single email sent to a client.
No commercial electronic message can be sent without the recipient’s consent to receive such communication.
N.B.: A message requesting consent is a commercial electronic message.
This means that you can not send an email to ask for consent, to someone who has not already provided some form of consent.
This is the primary form of consent that the Canadian Anti-Spam Law requires you to obtain, to be able to send commercial electronic messages.
Express consent is when the recipient has taken action to indicate that they want to receive your commercial electronic messages. This involves filling out a form, ticking a box, or any other clear way of proving that the person has requested to receive your messages.
Consent is limited to messages to which the person has agreed to. Subscribing to a newsletter gives you the right to send newsletters and nothing else!
Express consent expires only when the person removes it.
CASL allows for situations where commercial electronic messages may be sent in the absence of express consent. Implied consent, however, has strict conditions and an expiration date. It applies to:
Each commercial electronic message must indicate how one can quickly withdraw consent. While it is commonly done for newsletters, many companies ignore that this is also required for individual emails, text messages, and all other types of commercial electronic messages.
If the unsubscribe mechanism offers several options, the option to “unsubscribe from all messages” must be included.
If the unsubscribe mechanism does not provide options, the unsubscribe automatically applies to all messages from the company.
VALIDITY
MAXIMUM
OF MESSAGES
The Canadian Anti-Spam Law requires that each commercial electronic message includes the information necessary to identify and contact the sender.
This includes the sender’s email address, name, title, business name, telephone number, civic mailing address and website URL.
This information must be present and visible in all commercial electronic messages including individual emails, newsletters, text messages, etc.
If the message is sent from another party or a referenced contact, the identification and contact information of each party involved must be included.
Many companies and observers think that CASL is limited to consent. However, of the fines imposed to date, almost half of them were given to businesses that were compliant for consent but failed on other aspects of the law.
The Canadian Anti-Spam Act, with its 43 pages, regulations, and various guidelines and bulletins, is not only the toughest of its kind internationally but also the most complex.
The list below includes all regulatory and legal texts related to CASL that must be taken into account when sending commercial electronic messages.
Discover the three organisations authorised to carry out investigations as well as the various fines they have already imposed.
CASL provides a single and unique defence provision for businesses. Find out what it is and how to benefit from it.
If you have questions about your company’s compliance or your email marketing practices, speak with one of our experts.
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