CASL Archives

CASL

CASL and Freedom of Expression –The Writing Is on the Wall

On May 1, I participated in a vigorous discussion on the constitutionality of CASL at the 17th Biennial National Conference on Communications Law and Policy hosted by the Law Society of Upper Canada and the Canadian Bar Association in Ottawa. My talk was on whether CASL could survive a Charter challenge based on freedom of expression grounds. I focused on the recent United Food decision at the Supreme Court of Canada, which struck down the Alberta Personal Information Protection Act for disproportionately impinging on expression rights in order to achieve privacy objectives, and pointed out that CASL might also fall to a similar challenge.…

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CASL don’t forget about the computer program “malware” and “spyware” provisions

Earlier today, I co-chaired the program Countdown to Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation: Make Sure You Are Ready, jointly provided by the Ontario Bar Association and the Law Society of Upper Canada. I gave an overview of CASL focusing on the computer program provisions before moderating the “Ask the Experts” Q&A panel.

My slides on the computer program provisions are shown below.

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CASL

Canada’s anti-spam law CASL applies to you even if you aren’t in Canada

I got a call this week from a client asking if Canada’s new anti-spam/anti-malware legislation (CASL) applies to non-Canadian organizations. (It was one of the plethora of calls I got this week on CASL.) When I answered that CASL did indeed apply extra-territorially I was confronted with one of the many gasps of frustration I have also been encountering recently with this law (which several years ago I dubbed Canada’s Anti-Speech Legislation (CASL) because of its major chill on legitimate electronic messages).…

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CASL

McCarthy Tétrault releases CASL compliance toolkit

CASL compliance is a major challenge for Canadian organizations. The new legislation which regulates sending commercial electronic messages and the installation of computer programs is the toughest law of its kind anywhere.

To help organizations comply, McCarthy Tétrault has created a web page that compiles useful resources to help in developing and implementing compliance programs. It has also updated its very popular CASL Toolkit to take into account recent developments including the Industry Canada regulations and RIAS and the CRTC regulations and guidance documents.…

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CASL

CRTC FAQ on CASL

The CRTC just released a new FAQ on CASL. It contains little that is new and repeats much of what it had been previously said including in its two Guidelines. The focus of the FAQ are the anti-spam prohibitions. Some highlights are.

Disclaimer

These FAQs have been prepared by Commission staff in order to provide general information with respect to commonly posed questions about Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL). This material is not to be considered legal advice, nor does it reflect a decision, policy or interpretation of CASL and/or its accompanying regulations, by the Commission, Office of the Privacy Commissioner, the Competition Bureau or, Industry Canada.

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CASL

The Industry Canada CASL regulations and RIAS: a lost opportunity

If it was not clear enough before that there are many problems with CASL, it became evident when Industry Canada released the final regulations and the Regulatory Impact Analysis Statement (the RIAS). CASL takes an extremely broad “ban all” approach to regulating commercial messages and the installation of computer programs. This structure makes the exceptions particularly important because every CEM sent without consent (and following the prescribed rules) and every computer program installed on any computer (machine or device) without consent (and making the required disclosures) as part of a commercial activity will be illegal.…

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CASL

Legislative and Judicial Approaches to Internet Regulation: CASL as a case study

Here are slides from a talk I gave earlier in the year to Justice Canada on the topic of approaches to Internet regulation. It used CASL of a case study of what not to do. The slides referred to the Alberta Court of Appeal decision in the United Food case. That decision has since been affirmed by the Supreme Court in Alberta (Information and Privacy Commissioner) v. United Food and Commercial Workers, Local 401, 2013 SCC (summarized here)

For more information about CASL, see, CASL: the unofficial FAQ, regulatory impact statement, and compliance guideline.…

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CASL

CASL Industry Canada regulations: summary and comments

The Government has published final regulations and the Regulatory Impact Analysis Statement (RIAS) related to Canada’s anti-spam legislation (CASL). It has also published a copy of the Order in Council fixing the date when the Act will come into force. They are available on the fightspam.ca website.

Most of the Act will take effect on July 1, 2014. The sections of the Act related to the unsolicited installation of computer programs or software will come into force on January 15, 2015.…

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Industry Canada CASL Regulations published

Industry Canada Minister James Moore announced today that the new Industry Canada CASL regulations will be published in the Canada Gazette on December 18, 2013, just over a year after the second draft regulations were published for comment.

The final regulations are now also available on the fightspam.ca website along with an Explanatory Note, a Regulatory Impact Statement and an Order dealing with when CASL will come into force. CASL will come into effect on July 1, 2014. However, the computer program portion will only take effect on January 15, 2015.…

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Alberta PIPA violates Charter says Supreme Court in IPC v United Food and Commercial Workers

The Supreme Court released a landmark decision today in the Alberta (Information and Privacy Commissioner) v. United Food and Commercial Workers, Local 401, 2013 SCC 62 case. In short, the Court found that while Alberta’s privacy legislation PIPA plays a vital role in protecting privacy, it violated the Charter right to freedom of expression by precluding the use of personal information in the labour context. The ruling is an appeal from a decision the Alberta Court of Appeal, which is summarized here.…

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