On May 1, 2018, the CRTC announced that two ticket resale companies, 9118-9076 Quebec Inc. and 9310-6359 Quebec Inc. doing business as 514-BILLETS, agreed to pay a $100,000 penalty for allegedly violating Canada’s federal anti-spam legislation (CASL) by sending text messages without consent (see 514-BILLETS to pay $100,000 for allegedly violating Canada’s anti-spam law).
In particular, 514-BILLETS allegedly sent text messages to recipients without recipients’ consent, identifying the sender or including contact information to contact the sender.
The three core requirements of CASL are consent (express or implied consent), identification (for both consent requests and for commercial electronic messages (CEMs)) and an easy unsubscribe. For more information about the requirements of CASL, see here.
According to its News Release, the CRTC took issue with 514-BILLETS’ compliance with two of these core CASL requirements (consent and identification)
This case, which is the first under CASL relating to text messages, shows that it is important for companies that send CEMs to any kind of electronic address, as is very broadly defined by CASL to include electronic mail accounts or “any similar account”, to ensure that they are meeting all of the consent, identification and unsubscribe requirements of the law.
It also shows that despite the federal government’s recent indication that it may amend CASL to make it simpler and more business-friendly, the CRTC is still regularly enforcing the law and that non-compliance may result in significant penalties.
Finally, the case, in which 514-BILLETS agreed to also implement a CASL anti-spam compliance program, shows that the CRTC wants companies to adopt compliance programs in order to comply with CASL. In this respect, the CRTC has issued a Compliance and Enforcement Information Bulletin (CRTC 2014-326), in which it sets out the following core elements of a CASL compliance program: senior management involvement; risk assessment; a written corporate compliance policy; record keeping; a training program; auditing and monitoring; a complaint-handling system; and disciplinary action for violations.
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