Compliance Toolkit: AI-powered support for SMS compliance

Compliance Toolkit: AI-powered support for SMS compliance 

Staying compliant with federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) regulations for SMS in the US is more challenging than ever. Whether it’s adhering to quiet hours for marketing messages, addressing the shifts in consumer consent, or ensuring consumers haven’t changed phone numbers, the onus is on businesses to get compliance right. And the risks of non-compliance can be quite extensive, spanning financial implications from fines or class action lawsuits as well as damaged customer relationships due to late night text messages or negative publicity.

Today, we’re excited to announce the Public Beta launch of Compliance Toolkit, an AI-powered solution to help businesses proactively detect and address possible regulatory missteps. All for a single, low premium per message.

The launch of Compliance Toolkit reinforces Twilio’s goal of helping our customers deliver faster, more personalized, secure, and compliant experiences for global customers.

Why compliance matters for today’s businesses

At Twilio, we hear this from our customers every day. As SMS volumes surge, particularly for Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) with thousands of customers sending SMS and brands such as retail managing high volumes of marketing interactions, identifying and addressing regulatory requirements is resource intensive and complex

Regulations such as quiet hours differ if a message is essential (like fraud alerts) or non-essential (like marketing messages). Customers frequently opt-out and re-opt-in through means like web forms that cause consent management workflow challenges. People move, phone numbers are reassigned, and federal regulatory agencies make somewhat frequent changes while some states adopt more stringent requirements.  

And the stakes have never been greater. Fines for violating the TCPA can reach up to $1,500 per violation, and class action lawsuits are on the rise, sometimes settling for millions of dollars.

Compliance Toolkit removes friction for businesses, freeing you from the burdens of regulatory uncertainty so you can scale with peace of mind. We use data, automation, and AI to streamline compliance checks and help resolve possible violations before a message is ever sent.

How Compliance Toolkit works

Compliance Toolkit is a new product for Twilio SMS customers that uses artificial intelligence to proactively detect possible regulatory and messaging policy violations and prevents or reschedules their transmission so businesses can better manage their compliance obligations. Here’s how it works:

Proactive compliance checks: Compliance Toolkit automatically evaluates every SMS in real-time, without any extended latency, against known risk scenarios, including:

• Messaging quiet hours: For SMS scheduled between TCPA’s designated quiet hours (9 p.m. and 8 a.m. local time as determined by area code), Compliance Toolkit analyzes the message content to determine if it is essential like alerts or non-essential like marketing messages. For businesses, this is a difficult endeavor due to anomalies such as surveys where some may be considered essential whereas others may be considered marketing. Next, Compliance Toolkit reschedules those that are non-essential during the next compliant timeframe. 

• Opt-out: Comprehensive checks prevent messages attempted to be sent to recipients who have opted out. Error codes are surfaced for reporting, troubleshooting, and transparency. 

• Reassigned numbers: Leveraging FCC data, Compliance Toolkit will confirm the intended recipient still holds the number every 30 days. If it’s been reassigned, the message is blocked to prevent accidental violations and error codes are assigned.

Flexible overrides: Compliance Toolkit offers robust override capabilities that empower you to customize your solution as you see fit:

• Consent management: Facilitate consent management with the Consent Management API to honor the latest user preferences, including complex scenarios like consent reactivation through web forms or portals.

• Message categories: Customize message categorization with the MessageIntent parameter for known scenarios that are essential or non-essential.

• Quiet hours: Adjust end-user location for quiet hour checks using the Contact API when you are aware of timezone changes.

• Bypass: Use the RiskCheck parameter to exclude groups of messages from Compliance Toolkit, such as those sent from certain phone numbers or various ISV sub-accounts.

Signing up for Compliance Toolkit is as simple as three steps within the Twilio Console. 

1. Go to to Messaging > Settings > General 

2. Select “Enable” under Compliance Toolkit

3. Accept the terms and conditions

Implementation is instantaneous. Compliance Toolkit will immediately begin to proactively review your SMS for possible violations in support of helping you manage your compliance.

And we’re not done with Compliance Toolkit. We have a robust roadmap to address individual state-specific quiet hours, expand to new countries and new channels like RCS, MMS, and Voice, as well as identify and help protect against other risks, such as known litigators!

Start with Compliance Toolkit today

With Compliance Toolkit, we're making it easier and smarter than ever to manage your compliance obligations by combining artificial intelligence and robust data so you can get back to what matters: building meaningful customer relationships.

Learn more about Compliance Toolkit and get started today!

• Explore Compliance Toolkit documentation

• Sign-up now in two clicks

• Contact our sales team