Canadian Anti-Spam Law Update

The Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) remains one of the bodies responsible for compliance with Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL).

On April 4, 2023, Canadian police services participated in an internationally coordinated enforcement action against the Genesis Market that traded in stolen credentials and account access. The Genesis Market had over 1.5 million bots and over 2,000,000 identities when it was shut down. It was one of the largest criminal facilitators at the time.

Canadian police worked closely with law enforcement authorities in 17 countries in this coordinated effort. The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation led the international operation and in Canada worked with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) National Cybercrime Coordination Centre and the CRTC to identify Canadian users of the Genesis Market.

As most Canadian Genesis Market users were in Quebec the CRTC and the Surete du Quebec played a significant role.

The effectiveness of international cooperation and enforcement action holds criminals responsible for cyber crimes despite international borders and the perception of anonymity.

It is also reported that on July 11, 2023, the CRTC issued a Notice of Violation against Sam Medouni in relation to a high-volume phishing campaign. It was alleged that Sam Medouni sent directly or indirectly 31,925 commercial electronic messages (CEM) without the consent of the recipients using fraudulently obtained telephone numbers.

The investigation revealed that no consent had been obtained to send these messages.

The CRTC issued an administrative monetary penalty of $40,000 under the Notice of Violation.

The enforcement of CASL follows a recent trend of enforcement against fraudulent senders of CEMS in relation to phishing campaigns. This follows the earlier enforcement of CASL against businesses that often struggled to maintain their CASL compliance programs.