The CRTC is very good at communicating about CASL Enforcement. At least twice a year they present this type of update.
I like their work in the botnet area and their commitment to make the internet a safer place for Canadians.
In this period betweek April 1, 2021 and Septemeber 30, 2021 they sent out 253 Notices to Produce and issued 16 Preservation Demands. It is good to know they are quietly enforcing CASL, even though we don’t hear of many fines anymore.
They admit complaints are up. 5,939 compaints per week and lack of consent is the #1 complaint. It is also interesting to note the complaints were highest in September, yet this Government continues to fail us. They promised to help rebuild trust in a digital world, yet they have done the reverse.
The Private Right of Action that was included in this law was “indefinitely postponed” by Minister Bains when he was the Minister in charge of Innovation, Science and Economic Development. This was the real enforcement tool that would have changed the amount of spam we all recieve. With it still not in force, I am not surprised our spam is going up like the numbers indicate.
And a lot of these email messages and text messages are coming from the very “legitimate brands” Minister Bains was trying to protect from “frivolous lawsuits”. Fact is, there is no proof that these “frivolous lawsuits” would have happened to “legitimate brands”.
The only ones worried back in June 2017 when they lobbied Minister Bains heavily, were the ones who knew they were sending a lot of email with no way to prove consent. In other words, they were not CASL compliant and they knew the consumer would out them by using the PRA! The value of the Private Right of Action was: it was the only enforcement tool these email spammers were afraid of. Those who know me know I am a big fan of email marketing when it is properly used. Sending spam is not a good use of email marketing. Spam is defined as “irrelevant to the recipient” or “unwanted messages”.
And our Government “indefinitely postponed” the PRA allowing spam to every Canadian inbox to increase back to the pre-2014 numbers, before CASL came into force.
Why have a law you are not prepared to enforce properly?
Will Quebec will save the day and enforce Bill 64 the way it is written? There are strict consent rules in this new law. We will have to watch what happens when the first stage comes into force in 10 months.