Enforcing
Canada’s Anti-Spam
Legislation (CASL)

On April 4, 2023, as many as 28 Canadian police services took part in a Global Day of Action against Genesis Market.

Genesis was an online criminal marketplace that traded in advanced stolen credentials that supplied access to online accounts and other services. Cybercriminals bought what the market owners referred to as 'bots' that infected victims' devices through malware or account takeover attacks to gain access, defeat two-factor authentication and other security features as the first steps to commit fraud, hack into corporations, drop ransomware and steal intellectual property. Genesis Market had over 1.5 million bots and over 2 million identities listed when it was shut down, making it one of the largest online criminal facilitators.

With most Canadian Genesis users residing in Quebec, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) and Sûreté du Québec played a significant role in investigating high-level users and executing the warrants. The success of this large-scale targeted operation can be attributed to the RCMP’s National Cybercrime Coordination Centre who diligently worked with international partners from 17 countries that resulted in domain seizures and enforcement actions worldwide.

Click here to see the news release.

"The CRTC works closely with national and international partners to protect Canadians from online threats. The actions taken by the CRTC's enforcement partners to disrupt this illicit online activity will have a significant impact in preventing Canadians' stolen information from falling into the wrong hands. I applaud all our partners for their collaboration in this operation."

- Steven Harroun, Chief Compliance and Enforcement Officer, CRTC

Using social media to explain how the CRTC Fights Phishing and Spam

Steven Harroun, Chief Compliance and Enforcement Officer, CRTC, had a wide-ranging conversation with Ken Simpson, CEO of MailChannels. The discussion focused on critical topics surrounding Canada's digital landscape, including how the CRTC plays a role in protecting Canadians from online abuse, offered an overview of Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL) and sketched out the types of complaints the CRTC has received since the start of CASL.

During their chat, they talked about the CRTC’s enforcement strategies on spam, phishing, and other forms of cyber abuse. They also discussed emerging challenges posed by artificial intelligence, strategies for managing new threats such as botnet traffic, as well as ways to educate Canadians, including the complexities of navigating the evolving terrain of technology and communication platforms.

Click here to see the full interview.

Payments and Penalties Under CASL

Since CASL came into force in 2014, enforcement efforts have resulted in over $3.2 million issued in administrative monetary penalties^{Footnote 1}.

Canadian complaints are an essential part of the intelligence the Spam Reporting Center (SRC) gathers on spam and electronic threats.

Between April 1, 2023 and September 30, 2023:

Over 210,772 complaints were received by the Spam Reporting Centre.

That’s 8,106 per week.

Approximately 4,223 of these complaints were submitted using the online form, which represents only about 2.0% of the total complaints. The remainder of the complaints were sent by email at spam@fightspam.gc.ca.

It is helpful to use the SRC’s online form since it provide as much information as possible about potential CASL violations.

The CRTC encourages Canadians to also report spam SMS to the SRC.

Reasons why Canadians complain

Long description:

Complaint reasons and percentages

• Lack of consent: 53%
• Identification of sender: 17%
• Deceptive Marketing Practices: 18%
• Other: 10%
• Software and malware: 2%

Per month break down of complaints

Note: Statistics derived from spam reports filed through the SRC online form.

Long description:

Year-month	Other	Lack of consent	Identification of sender	Deceptive Marketing Practices	Software and malware	Grand Total
2023-04	106	566	210	215	38	1135
2023-05	105	643	170	174	14	1106
2023-06	114	685	212	265	11	1287
2023-07	107	454	141	134	24	860
2023-08	116	583	199	198	19	1115
2023-09	101	655	223	239	19	1237
Grand Total	649	3586	1155	1225	125	6740

Collaboration with International Partners

The CRTC works with members from over 26 countries to fulfill its mandate, to promote international cooperation and address problems relating to spam and unsolicited communication.