CASL Overview

CASL, Canada's Anti-spam Legislation, is a federal law passed in December 2010. CASL prescribes consent and content requirements for the transmission of commercial electronic messages (CEMs) to organizations and individuals.

The legislation generally prohibits the sending of CEMs without the recipient’s prior consent. Consent must be obtained as outlined in the legislation. In addition to the consent requirements, the content of a CEM must identify the sender of the message and provide a unsubscribe mechanism by which the recipient can opt-out from receiving future CEMs.

CASL also regulates:

• The installation of computer programs without consent
• The unauthorized altering of transmission data
• The provision of false or misleading information in a message
• The harvesting of addresses
• The unauthorized collection of personal information

Although CASL applies to educational institutions, including the University of Winnipeg, many of the messages sent by the University are not commercial in nature. Therefore, CASL does not apply to those messages.

For more information about CASL, including its applicability to various activities of the University, view our CASL Resources.