Canada’s anti-spam law (“CASL”) outlines violations, enforcement mechanisms, and penalties aimed at protecting online consumers against spam, electronic threats, and misuse of digital technology. CASL’s anti-spam rules came into effect on July 1, 2014. CASL’s software update and installation rules came into effect on January 15, 2015. The latter rules are often referred to as malware/spyware computer program rules. Under these rules, CASL applies, in addition to applying in other circumstances, when a person, in the course of a commercial activity, installs or causes to be installed a computer program on any other person’s computer system, unless the person has obtained the express consent of the owner or an authorized user of the computer system as required by CASL.

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (the “CRTC”) has the primary enforcement responsibility under CASL. Under CASL, the CRTC has various enforcement mechanisms, including obtaining a warrant with respect to a CASL violation. On December 3, 2015, the CRTC announced that it served its first-ever warrant under CASL to take down a command-and-control server located in Toronto, Ontario, which is a centralized computer that issues commands to a botnet and receives reports back from the co-opted computers. A botnet is a set of computers that have been compromised through the installation of malware and which can be instructed to send spam, install additional malicious programs and steal passwords, among other illicit activity.

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