TCPA
The TCPA (Telephone Consumer Protection Act) is the 1991 US federal law that restricts calls and text messages made with an autodialer or an artificial or prerecorded voice. It requires the recipient’s consent before most such calls are placed.
Also called: Telephone Consumer Protection Act, TCPA compliance, robocall law
The TCPA, at 47 U.S.C. §227, governs how businesses may contact people by phone. Its central rules: calls or texts to a mobile number made with an automatic telephone dialing system or an artificial or prerecorded voice need the called party’s prior express consent; telemarketing calls of that kind need prior express written consent; and telemarketers must honor the National Do Not Call Registry. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) writes the implementing rules and consumers can sue directly, the statute provides damages of $500 per violation, rising to $1,500 where the violation was willful or knowing.
In February 2024 the FCC issued a declaratory ruling that a voice generated by artificial intelligence, including a cloned voice, is an “artificial” voice for TCPA purposes. An outbound call placed by an AI voice therefore needs the same consent as a prerecorded call.
The law is about calls a business initiates. A call the customer places is not a robocall, so an AI answering an inbound call sits outside the consent rules; a text or call the business sends back afterwards is an outbound contact and is not. Which consent a given contact needs depends on the number type, the content and how it was placed, which is why the consent terms below matter.