Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL) came into effect on July 1, 2014, and many organizations have put measures in place to comply with its rules on sending commercial electronic messages.
However, there is a second wave of CASL on the horizon, this time to deal with provisions pertaining to the altering of transmission data in electronic messages and the installation of computer programs. As the practice of altering transmission data is usually perpetrated by hackers, the vast majority of legitimate businesses should not have to worry about this rule, but the computer program rules – which prohibit anyone from installing or causing to be installed, in the course of a commercial activity, a computer program on any other person’s computer system without express consent or a court order – are important for any organization that provides software or products with embedded software.
In response to concern that there is some uncertainty surrounding CASL’s computer program rules because of broad and often unclear wording, the CRTC recently released plain language guidance on the rules to help businesses get ready by January 15, 2015. My colleagues have prepared a bulletin highlighting 12 key points of the guidance document to help businesses navigate the available information. Read the CASL bulletin here >
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