The Government of Canada has suspended the implementation of the private right of action in Canada’s anti-spam legislation (CASL).
The provisions in connection with CASL’s private right of action were scheduled to come into force on July 1, 2017. They would have given people the ability to seek damages against those who contravene certain sections of CASL, including the provisions with respect to sending commercial electronic messages, as well as certain sections of the federal Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act.
The coming into force of these provisions was repealed by an Order in Council on June 2, 2017. The short preçis associated with this Order remarks that the coming into force was suspended “in order to promote legal certainty for numerous stakeholders claiming to experience difficulties in interpreting several provisions of the Act while being exposed to litigation risk”. The Government made the announcement on June 7, 2017, in a press release which stated that the suspension was done “in response to broad-based concerns raised by businesses, charities and the not-for-profit sector”.
The suspension of the coming into force of these provisions is indefinite.
To view an earlier blog post on this issue by Marko Vesely, click here.
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