Canadian Anti Spam Legislation (CASL)

In order to protect the Canadian public, without hindering the ability for businesses to remain competitive in a global market, the Canadian Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL) was introduced in July 2014. The legislation may affect any business that uses electronic media to market their business or businesses that supply electronic media like programs or apps to the public.

On the 15th of January, 2015, amendments to this legislation came into effect. Under the amended Canadian Anti-Spam Legislation it is no longer legal to install programs or updates to a user’s computer without their consent. This applies to computer software and phone or tablet apps that are installed by a third party for commercial use. It does not affect the installation of these media by a private individual to their own computer or device. It also applies to updates, unless it is implied or specified that these updates form part of the original agreement between the user and the service provider. It is only required that service providers comply with the legislation if they are providing a service to users who live in Canada. A Canadian business supplying electronic products to residents outside of Canada will need to comply with the regulations of that country or state.

The Canadian Anti-Spam Legislation does not apply to the use of Cookies, HTML, JavaScript, an operating system, security protection or updates provided by a telecommunications operator and software that is installed to correct or eliminate bugs relating to an existing program. In these cases, the law considers the user to have given prior consent by the fact that they are already using the services listed. It does not apply if the user chooses, by their actions, not make use of these services—for example, when a user disables cookies in their browser.