Complying With Electronic Messaging Regulations - SMS & Email Best Practice

Overview

Each country has its own regulations covering the use of electronic messaging in order to protect its citizens and reduce the amount of spam or scam messaging. We have developed this Best Practice guide as a general overview of the main areas to be aware of, but it does not provide any specific legal advice and you should check with your own experts to ensure you comply with the regulations in your country.

SMS and email carriers increasingly require sender verification checks prior to using their systems and have implemented automated filtering software to protect recipients from illegal or unwanted messaging. In countries where this applies, we will need to obtain the relevant information about your business and messaging requirements in order to apply for carrier verification before you can send any text messages from your account.

Messages from unverified accounts or which appear to contain suspicious content may not be delivered and the sender could be blocked from sending any further messages. Other factors can also cause senders to be blocked, for example if sending your messages causes high opt-out rates or repeated end-user complaints.

SMS Best Practise

In order to reduce the risk of your text and email messages not complying with regulations and being blocked by carriers, we recommend that you regularly review that your electronic messaging process and content complies with the regulations in your country. The following areas require particular attention:

Data Protection & Privacy

Make sure that you always comply with the regulations in your country covering personal data collection, storage, retention, message preferences and usage

Gaining Consent

Always get the necessary opt-in agreement from all recipients before sending them any text or email messages in order to comply with regulations and help prevent your recipients from opting out of receiving your messages in future.

Including Sender Details

Always identify yourself as the sender of the message so the recipient knows it's from you and why they are receiving it. We recommend including the [ORGANIZATION] command in all your SMS and Email message templates so the system automatically includes your account name in every message

Allowing Opt-Out

Always include opt-out wording in every message to comply with regulations and ensure the recipient can easily revoke consent to receive text and email messages if they no longer require them. We recommend using the SMS message template option marked "Allow client to opt-out of reminders" and set this to Yes, so the system automatically includes opt-out wording in every text message.

Sending Time Restrictions

Check if your country has regulations which restrict when electronic messaging can be sent, as a general rule we recommend only sending business text and email reminders during normal office hours. You can restrict the sending times of text messages using the SMS Settings option marked “Only send reminders between” and choosing your required start and end times.

Frequency of Messages

Only send electronic messages when they are necessary, do not bombard recipients with unwanted messages as these are likely to be considered spam and cause your messages to be blocked by the recipients or the carriers.

Message Content

Regularly check the regulations in your country for the type of content that is not allowed or not recommended in electronic messaging. Do not send any content that is illegal, harmful, unwanted, inappropriate, objectionable, confirmed to be criminal misinformation, or otherwise poses a threat to the public. Examples of content that should not be sent include, but are not limited to, the following and if in any doubt you should check the regulations before sending:

• Narcotic drugs and illegal substances*
• Prescription medication
• Hate speech, harassment, exploitative, abusive, or any communications that originate from a hate group
• Fraudulent messages, spam or scam
• Malicious content, such as malware or viruses
• High-risk financial services
• Third-party lead generation services
• Debt collection or forgiveness
• "Get rich quick" schemes
• Gambling
• Weapons and firearms
• Alcohol, tobacco and vaping

We recommend that you do not include website links in your messages that have been shortened using shared public URL shorteners such as Tiny.Url or Bit.ly, as these are often used to disguise illicit/unwanted sites. Only include URL's that are proprietary and branded e.g your own website URL or a recognised brand URL.

Also do not include emojis, unnecessary special characters or excessive capital letters in messages as these are more likely to cause opt-out or be blocked.

*Please note that messages related to cannabis are not allowed in the United States and other countries as federal laws prohibit its sale, even though some states have legalized it. Similarly, messages related to CBD are not permissible in the United States and other countries, as certain states prohibit its sale. Therefore we don't allow messages related to either.

To aid compliance, any banned words will be removed from messages being sent from our system.