How Long Does Implied Consent Last Under CASL?

How long implied consent lasts under CASL

It depends on how the relationship arose: implied consent lasts up to 2 years for a completed transaction or a charitable donation, but only 6 months for a bare inquiry or application, and express consent does not expire at all. Federally, CASL sets these limits directly: “their implied consent may be valid for up to 2 years, or just 6 months in the case of inquiries or applications.” This applies the same way whether the recipient is in Ontario, Alberta, or any other province, since CASL is a single federal statute.

The conditions that change the length

The starting point in CASL s 10(10)(a) is that implied consent from a purchase, lease, or business opportunity lasts “within the two-year period immediately before the day on which the message was sent.” That two-year window also covers non-business relationships: a donation or gift to a registered charity, political party, or candidate gives implied consent for two years from the date of the gift, under CASL s 10(13)(a).

By contrast, implied consent based only on an inquiry or application, with no purchase or donation actually completed, lasts only six months, under CASL s 10(10)(e). Someone who asks about a product but never buys it can lawfully be sent commercial electronic messages for six months from the date of that inquiry, not two years.

Ongoing relationships are different again. Where the relationship is a subscription, account, loan, or membership that is still active, the two-year period does not even begin until the relationship terminates, under CASL s 10(14)(a). In practical terms, an active member or subscriber remains within the implied-consent window for the whole life of that relationship, plus two years after it ends.

None of this applies to express consent. Where a recipient has affirmatively opted in, that consent has no expiry date and stays valid indefinitely, unless the recipient withdraws it, as ISED and the CRTC confirm: “there is no time limit unless the recipient withdraws his or her consent.” The expiry rules discussed above apply only to implied consent, not to express consent.

A worked example

A hardware store in Alberta sells a customer a set of tools on March 1, 2023. Under CASL s 10(10)(a), that purchase creates implied consent lasting 2 years from the transaction date, so the store can send commercial electronic messages to that customer until March 1, 2025. If the same customer had only asked for a price quote without buying anything, the store’s implied consent under CASL s 10(10)(e) would have expired after 6 months, on September 1, 2023. If instead the customer holds an active loyalty membership with the store, the 2-year clock under CASL s 10(14)(a) would not start until that membership ends.

Common mistakes

• Sending messages past the two-year mark from an old sale. Federally, once 2 years pass from the last qualifying transaction with no new purchase, implied consent under CASL s 10(10)(a) has lapsed, and continuing to send messages is no longer covered by that consent.
• Treating an inquiry the same as a completed sale. An inquiry or application only supports implied consent for 6 months under CASL s 10(10)(e), not the 2-year window that applies to actual transactions.
• Assuming express consent needs renewal. Because express consent has no expiry under CASL s 10(1)-(2), sending unnecessary re-consent requests to people who already gave express consent is not a statutory requirement.
• Losing track of which relationship type applies to which contact. Since business-relationship, donation, inquiry, and ongoing-relationship consents each run on different clocks under CASL s 10(10)(a), s 10(13)(a), s 10(10)(e), and s 10(14)(a), a single undifferentiated mailing list can mix expired and valid implied consents without anyone noticing.