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Canada- Anti Spam Legislation

Canada- Anti Spam Legislation

The Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) and the Federal Court of Appeal issued guidance regarding Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL) validity. This guidance lays down a comprehensive regime for regarding offences, enforcement mechanisms etc.

Some critical aspects of the CASL are as follows:

  1. Prohibition and exceptions regarding Commercial Electronic Messages (CEM) unless the recipient has expressly given his consent to receive such messages. It also ensures that these CEMs comply with formalities as laid down in the legislation.
  2. It further also prohibits the installation and use of computer programs on another system in commercial activities without the express consent of the user of such a system.
  3. It imposes a liability on the persons or entities engaging in direct or indirect violations; the legislation provides for due diligence as a defence.
  4. The legislation imposes regulatory penalties for any such violations along with the option to claim a private right of action.

The CRTC is responsible for enforcing all such regulations as per the rules and take actions against violators thereof. For this purpose, the guidance issued touches on exceptions associated with self-installed computers, the owner and authorized user's definition, provisions related to the invasion of computer programs for which separate consent is required from the authorized user, amongst others. They have further raised concerns regarding computer applications that use personal data and such data being shared. There has also been mention of downloading other programs and applications that do not expressly obtain their users' consent before downloading other programs; all these issues have been addressed in the guidance as mentioned.