Canada’s anti-spam law (CASL), enforced by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), requires that businesses and organizations secure a recipient’s express or implied consent before sending “commercial electronic messages” (CEM). A CEM is any electronic message that encourages participation in a commercial activity, such as a coupon or message about a promotion of the organization, an e-vite, and newsletters sent using email, text messaging or certain forms of messages sent through social networks. The legislation imposes severe fines for non-compliance and leaves open the possibility for private or class actions for damages. CASL has been deemed one of the toughest pieces of anti-spam legislation.

The biggest feature of CASL is the consent requirement, which requires Canadian and global organizations that send CEMs within, from or to Canada to obtain consent from recipients before sending the messages. This requirement does not apply to CEMs merely routed through Canada. The requirement only applies to communications sent to electronic addresses.

Consent may be obtained expressly or may be implied, and it is imperative that an organization, which has the burden of proving that consent was obtained, keep records as to how it obtained consent.…

A recent U.S. Supreme Court decision provides “a very clear and straightforward message” to law enforcement: You must obtain a warrant to search the contents of any cell phone. Kelly Johnson provides a review of the court’s decision in his article, “Privacy Comes at a Cost — Warrant Required for Cell Phone Search,” published by the Cincinnati Bar Association in its CBA Report.…

Saman Rajaee was a salesman for Design Tech Homes. He used his personal iPhone to connect to his employer’s Microsoft Exchange Server, which allowed him to access his work-related email, contacts and calendar from his phone. Design Tech did not have a BYOD policy. When Rajaee’s employment terminated, Design Tech remotely wiped his phone, which deleted all of his data, including personal emails, texts, photos, personal contacts, etc.

Rajaee sued under the federal Stored Communications (SCA) and Computer Fraud and Abuse Acts (CFAA) as well as raising various state law claims. Design Tech moved for summary judgment on the federal claims. On the SCA claim, the court held, based on Fifth Circuit precedent, that information an individual stores to his hard drive or cell phone is not in electronic storage within the meaning of the statute.…

Two recent decisions – one from the federal district court in New Jersey and one from a federal Administrative Law Judge – potentially will have significant impact on the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) enforcement of business’s data security obligations. (Read more about these cases here and here.)

FTC v. Wyndam Worldwide

In FTC v. Wyndham Worldwide Corporation, the New Jersey federal district court upheld the FTC’s authority to find that a business that has sustained a data breach has committed an “unfair trade practice” in violation of Section 5(a) of the Federal Trade Commission Act, 15 U.S.C. §45(a) when its privacy controls are found to be inadequate. Over the past several years, the FTC has regulated data privacy and security under Section 5(a) by bringing actions against businesses that have sustained data breaches on the ground that the business has committed a deceptive and/or an unfair trade practice. The deceptive trade practice claim typically alleges that the business has failed to live up to its promises to consumers about how it will secure the privacy of their data. More controversially, however, the FTC also has sought to regulate data security by bringing actions against businesses alleging that they had inadequate data security protections even in the absence of any consumer promises. Until Wyndham challenged the FTC authority, these “unfair trade practice” cases brought by the FTC have settled.…