Bill C-28, Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL) was passed in December
2010 and most provisions come into force on July 1, 2014.
By this date, all organizations will be required to
comply with CASL`s specific anti-spam provision regarding commercial
electronic messages (CEMs).
This legislation means that schools that wish to
send out information about school fundraisers or a field trip that costs
any money would be sending out a message that meets the definition of
commercial activity because one of the purposes of that message would be
to encourage participation in a commercial activity. In this case prior
consent from the recipient must be obtained, express or implied.
This piece of legislation is expected to cause many
problems with communication that many of us have come to expect or
depend upon. For example, following July 1, requests for consent cannot
be requested by email, unless there is a pre-existing relationship with
the recipient as defined in CASL. Such a request for consent message
must then come in the form of fax, regular post mail or telephone.
If any of our members with a legal background wish
to weigh in with their opinion, it would be nice to know just what
implied consent means. My opinion is that the members of the Valley East
Facebook Group are giving their implied consent to receive any messages
posted on this site because they joined the group of their own free will
and may stay or leave as they wish. Therefore, all posts on this site
will comply with the legislation with respect to the implied consent of
the members to receive messages.
For example, a commercial electronic message is
defined as something that is sent, not something that is pulled. So
anything that’s posted on a website that isn’t sent out but is made
available for people to access, is not a commercial electronic message.
When it comes to Facebook, anything that is posted
to a site is not being sent out. You are just posting it and others come
to the site to look at it. When you receive a notification it is because
you opted in to receive that notification, so Facebook posts should not
be affected. However, if you "message" someone or text someone about a
commercial activity, that may not be allowed under the new legislation.
I would imagine that the use of the term implied
consent is going to heard a lot in the coming year.
Any information you may have on this legislation
would be welcome.
http://fightspam.gc.ca/eic/site/030.nsf/eng/home
