Another company that is well-known to consumers has agreed to enter into a compliance undertaking with the CRTC for alleged CASL violations. Kellogg Canada Inc. has paid a monetary penalty of $60,000 and undertaken to enter into a compliance program to better address elements such as:
- written CASL compliance policies and procedures;
- training programs for employees;
- tracking CASL complaints and resolution; and
- monitoring and auditing mechanisms to assess compliance.
Notably, the compliance issues arose from messages that were sent: not only by Kellogg, but also by its third party service providers, and not long after CASL entered into force in July 2014. This was a time when many companies were early on in the process of familiarizing themselves with the many CASL requirements, and implementing programs to make sure that databases, third party agencies (marketing companies and other service providers) and internal procedures were all in line.
The CRTC’s Notice regarding Kellogg’s 2014 compliance issues comes only a month after the CRTC issued its Enforcement Advisory to businesses and individuals on how to keep records of consent (see our recent blog post here), and less than a year before the Private Right of Action becomes available in Canada under CASL legislation, meaning that the CRTC will not be the only one taking businesses to task for CASL compliance.
