Information for Non-profits and Registered Charities
Updates
- December 18, 2017 – The House of Commons Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology has completed its review of Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation. The Committee has issued a report entitled “Clarifications Are in Order.” To read an overview of the report written by Borden Ladner Gervais see: http://blg.com/en/News-And-Publications/Publication_5165
- May 2017 – see Additional Resources for more information
- June 8, 2017 – Order in Council released June 7, 2017. The private right of action under Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL) has been suspended. See: Miller Thomson Newsletter for more information and Blumberg’s GlobalPhilanthropy.ca.
- July 1, 2017 – Changes to Implied Consent Rules – GlobalPhilanthropy.ca
What is CASL
CASL stands for Canada’s Anti-Spam legislation. This anagram is the unofficial name for a new law recently passed by the Parliament of Canada. The official name of the law is “An Act to promote the efficiency and adaptability of the Canadian economy by regulating certain activities that discourage reliance on electronic means of carrying out commercial activities, and to amend the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission Act, the Competition Act, the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act and the Telecommunications Act (“The Act”)”.
CASL comes into force on July 1, 2014. Because it is a federal law, it will apply to not-for-profit organizations and, with some limited exceptions, to registered charities across Canada. It is important that these groups learn about how this law will apply to them.
While the unofficial title of the Act targets spam, it is actually much broader in scope. CASL deals with commercial electronic messages (CEMs) and it regulates a broad range of activities including:
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- unsolicited commercial messages such as emails, texts and tweets;
- hacking, malware and spyware;
- “phishing” and other fraudulent or misleading practices;
- invading privacy through a computer; and
- collecting email addresses without consent.
Registered charities and not-for-profit organizations may discover that many of the communication tools that they have routinely used over many years will now be subject to the provisions of this Act. This website will provide information to help organizations prepare and cope with the coming changes.
Go to the following pages for more information about CASL:
FAQs
CPLEA Tips and Tools
Information provided is current as of date of posting June 2014
