TCPA

What it is

The Telephone Consumer Protection Act is the United States federal statute behind the FCC's rules on automated calls, codified at 47 CFR 64.1200. In a declaratory ruling of February 2024 the FCC confirmed that calls using AI-generated or cloned voices are "artificial or prerecorded voice" calls under the Act. The consequence, as the rule is published: outbound calls made with a voice agent need the called party's prior express consent, and marketing calls to mobile numbers need prior express written consent. The rules also require such calls to identify the caller at the start and give a callback number, and restrict telephone solicitations to between 8 a.m. and 9 p.m. in the called party's local time.

Inbound calls placed by the consumer are outside the consent requirement, which is why most first deployments are inbound.

Why it matters when buying

The TCPA carries statutory damages per call and an active class-action bar, so the exposure on an outbound campaign scales with volume. Reminders, recalls and collections calls made by an agent are all in scope. Consent records, opt-out handling and calling-hour enforcement therefore have to be features of the platform, not promises in a slide. This page is informational and not legal advice; confirm with counsel and the regulator's current text.

What to ask

Ask how the platform stores and checks consent before each outbound call, and how it enforces local calling hours per called number. Ask how an opt-out request, spoken or by keypad, is honoured and logged. Ask whether the agent identifies the business and gives a callback number by default. Ask who is responsible if the vendor's default configuration places a non-compliant call.