CASL Compliance

Canada has decided to create their own anti-spam legislation and to stop following our CAN-SPAM law. Their new law is called Canada's Anti Spam Legislation (CASL).
There are some key differences between the two laws, mainly:

1. Canada's law will apply to more than just email but includes other forms of communications like text messages, social media pushes, and the installation of software.
2. Individuals are able to bring suit against a company that spams them (in the US only an ISP can bring suit).
3. CASL requires consent (either expressed or implied) and sets an expiration date for that consent (2 years from end of relationship (like graduation), 2 years from their last donation, 6 months from the time of inquiry/application, etc.)
4. It also requires notification of implied email consent for any off line transactions that would trigger an email confirmation. For instance, if the Box Office processed an order from a Canadian over the phone or via a paper order form, we'd need to state that an email confirmation of their purchase would be sent out. I'm sure there are other use cases that would be affected by this between the Admissions office, Advancement, etc.
5. CASL goes into effect on July 1, 2014 and the portion which allows individuals to bring suit starts in 2017.

The good news is that "doing due diligence to comply to the law" is seen as a viable defense in the event of a suit being brought.

Naturally there are a number of things that can/should be done in advance of the July 1 date in order to ensure that we are indeed doing our due diligence.
These include:

1. Messaging all Canadian constituents and seeking their consent in advance. These could probably be identified by the country we have on their address in SF and/or anyone with a .ca email address.
2. Since no methods of identifying them will be perfect, it is also recommended that we add a "Canadian consent" link to all of our other email templates which links to form where we can gather this consent.
3. Keeping track of consent on the constituent record in SF (including type (implied or explicit), status, and expiration date).
4. Creating automated workflows that trigger an email, or a series of emails, seeking renewal of consent in advance of that expiration date.
5. Creating a Campaign/Group of all Canadian addresses that we do not have consent for which can be used as a "do not email" group after July 1, 2014.
6. Having a meeting with all internal folks that could be involved with emailing Canadians to ensure that they are up-to-date on all of this and taking it into consideration as they do their jobs.

I'm sure there's more that'll pop up between now and then but this is the extent to which I've wrapped my head around all of this to this point. I figured it was time I reach out to you to see if you're aware of any CASL related stuff coming down the Convio pike or if you think we should try to set up a time to talk with someone over there about this.