September 26, 2022
CASL (FEDERAL ANTI-SPAM LAW)
COMPLIANCE PRECEDENTS AND CHECKLISTS
Do you need CASL precedents or checklists
to comply with Canadian anti-spam law?
In addition to our legal services, we offer lawyer-prepared CASL compliance precedents and checklists that identify key consent, disclosure and other requirements to send commercial electronic messages (CEMs) to Canadians and provide checklists and templates to comply with CASL.
Our compliance precedents and checklists are an excellent way to mitigate risk and avoid common CASL-related issues, including relating to express consent requests, sender identification information for CEMs, CASL-compliant unsubscribe mechanisms, business related exemptions and types of implied consent and documenting consent and scrubbing distribution lists. We also offer a template CASL corporate compliance program based on the Canadian CRTC’s CASL compliance program recommendations.
All of our Canadian CASL compliance precedents and checklists include practical overviews of each of the relevant requirements, compliance checklists and guidance how to use them.
Our CASL compliance checklists and precedents are Word version documents with PayPal checkout and credit card payment options.
For more information and to order see: CASL Compliance Checklists and Precedents.
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Canada’s federal anti-spam legislation (CASL) came into force in 2014. Since then, marketers and their advisors have been working to comply with what remains a complex law with outstanding uncertainties in some key areas.
In providing CASL advice to clients since CASL came into force, and even over the past several years, I regularly see some of the same compliance errors being made, even by otherwise sophisticated marketers.
In this regard, one common CASL compliance error that I see is the failure to update and scrub electronic distribution lists.
While much of the compliance discussion for CASL tends to relate to its three core requirements for sending commercial electronic messages (CEMs) – i.e., consent, sender identification a CASL-compliant un-subscribe mechanism – back-end compliance is also essential for CASL compliance.
In this regard, in general, the onus is on senders to document consent for sending CEMs (whether express or implied consent). Unfortunately, however, in many cases marketers do not have sufficient systems in place to update and scrub their electronic marketing lists to remove recipients when there is no longer consent or an applicable exception.
CASL requires, among other things, that: (i) recipients that request to be unsubscribed be removed from marketing lists within 10 days; (ii) existing customers be removed after two years from the most recent purchase (unless they have provided express consent to receive CEMs during that time); (iii) people that have inquired about a product be removed after six months after the inquiry (unless they have provided express consent during that time); and (iv) for some of the exceptions under CASL, such as the so-called “B2B exception”, that recipients be removed when the applicable exception no longer applies (e.g., for the B2B exception, when the relevant business relationship no longer exists).
Based on the fact that express consent and the various types of implied consent and exceptions under CASL each have different requirements, electronic distribution lists should be organized (i.e., divided) according to the type of consent (whether express or implied) or exception being relied upon for each recipient.
Distribution lists should also be regularly reviewed and “scrubbed” to remove recipients where neither consent (whether express or implied) nor a relevant exception still applies.
For CASL precedents for documenting consent, see: CASL Precedents and Forms.
For more information about CASL, see: Canadian Anti-Spam Law (CASL), CASL Compliance, CASL Compliance Tips, CASL Compliance Errors and CASL FAQs.
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CASL (CANADIAN ANTI-SPAM LAW) COMPLIANCE TIPS
For tips to comply with Canada’s federal anti-spam legislation (CASL), see: CASL Compliance Tips.
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Templates/precedents and checklists to run promotional contests in Canada
Templates/precedents and checklists to comply with Canadian anti-spam law (CASL)
