TCPA

What is the TCPA?

The TCPA (Telephone Consumer Protection Act) is a US federal law passed in 1991 that restricts telemarketing calls, calls made with autodialers or prerecorded voices, and text messages sent without the recipient's consent. Text messages are treated as calls under the law. That makes the TCPA the main US law behind the consent rules for texting programs, including text-to-join.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) writes the rules that put the TCPA into practice, and those rules have changed over the years. The law also lets individuals sue over messages they didn't agree to, which is a large part of why businesses take it seriously.

How does it work?

At a definitional level, the TCPA does a few things that matter for texting:

• It ties sending to consent. Many kinds of automated texts need the recipient's prior consent, and the bar is higher for marketing messages than for informational ones.
• It gives people a way out. When someone asks to stop receiving messages, that request has to be honored.
• It puts the burden on the sender. The organization sending the messages is expected to be able to show it had consent.

The details (what counts as an autodialer, what form consent has to take, how fast an opt-out must be honored) have been shaped by FCC orders and court decisions, and they keep shifting. Several states also have their own laws on calls and texts that add requirements.

The TCPA sits alongside the industry rules that carriers apply to short codes, set out by CTIA. The TCPA is law; the CTIA guidelines are the conditions carriers set for running a program on their networks. A texting program has to meet both.

This page explains what the TCPA is. It isn't legal advice, and nothing here says any program is compliant. For your situation, talk to a lawyer who works on communications law.

Why it matters at live events

Text-to-join at an event starts with the person texting first. A speaker says "Text DEMO to 33777," and the people who want the slides send the message. That's an opt-in action, and it's a different starting point from texting a list of numbers someone else collected.

What you do after that first text still matters. The questions to bring to a lawyer are about what your call to action promises, what you send in reply, and what you do with the phone number and email afterward. If you plan to add people to an email list, say so in the call to action.

With Textiful, people start the conversation themselves. STOP and HELP are handled automatically on every keyword and QR code. For more on consent basics at events, read Is text-to-join legal?

Key takeaways

• The TCPA is a 1991 US federal law restricting calls and texts sent without consent.
• Text messages count as calls under it, so it shapes consent rules for texting programs.
• Its details come from FCC rules and court decisions and change over time; some states add their own laws.
• For questions about your own program, get legal advice.

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