Activities / What code does / Sends automated outreach

Sends automated texts

sends_automated_texts

Your app sends text or picture messages to phone numbers by itself.

  • scope code
  • in the registry since 1.16
  • 50 laws in 39 jurisdictions name it

What triggers it

The lint's definition. It sends SMS, MMS or other text messages to phone numbers that the software initiates, rather than a person sending each one.

This covers a marketing text campaign, an appointment reminder service, and an agent that texts people.

What does not

A message a person types and sends each time does not count.

It implies Sends automated outreach, so the rules written for every channel reach it too.

Often confused with Sends automated outreach and Sends commercial email.

The law it brings into scope

The kinds of law that name this activity in the LexLint law library, with the number of laws and jurisdictions in each, as of . The examples are chosen by rule, laws in force first and the widest jurisdiction first; each section's page lists every law.

Area of lawLawsJurisdictions
Communications law

Get consent before marketing, calling, recording or storing data on a device, and honor an opt-out.

50 39

This activity implies Sends automated outreach, so every law that names that activity reaches it too. These areas of law reach it only that way:

  • Privacy law: 123 laws in 94 jurisdictions, through Sends automated outreach

    Have a legal basis for personal data, honor people's rights over it, and report a breach.

  • Cybersecurity law: 114 laws in 75 jurisdictions, through Sends automated outreach

    Build software securely, handle reported flaws, and report incidents on a deadline.

  • Product and AI liability law: 26 laws in 24 jurisdictions, through Sends automated outreach

    Answer in damages when defective software or an AI system causes harm.

  • AI law: 7 laws in 7 jurisdictions, through Sends automated outreach

    Tell people when they are dealing with an AI system or its output, and control the uses the law calls high-risk.

  • Scraping law: 4 laws in 4 jurisdictions, through Sends automated outreach

    Stay within computer-access law, a site's terms, and the copyright in what is copied.

Counterparties that usually come with it

  • a carrier gateway for text messages
  • a messaging platform

A component that cannot run as documented without one of these names it in its ACTIVITIES.md under talks_to, with required: true. That party's jurisdiction then joins the run of every product that uses the component, and the finding says why it is there. A default the deployer can change is asked about, never added. Talking to a party never makes a product that party.

In a declaration

A library or framework that makes this possible enables it; an application whose shipped code does it performs it.

For a library

activities: - id: sends_automated_texts mentioned: enables enabled: requires_configuration where: [<the module that carries it>] note: <one sentence>

For an application

activities: - id: sends_automated_texts mentioned: performs enabled: by_default where: [<the module that carries it>] note: <one sentence: what it does, and the kind of law it attracts>

History

In the registry since version 1.16, .

Added for Telephone Consumer Protection Act, Autodialer and Artificial or Prerecorded Voice Calls (United States), Commercial Electronic Mail Act, Text Messages (Washington), the law that turns on it.

In the glossary: Sends automated texts.

The activity registry is LexLint's open list; this page's text is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0.