Telephone Consumer Protection Act

The Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 (TCPA) was passed by the United States Congress in 1991 and signed into law by President George H. W. Bush as Public Law 102-243. It amended the Communications Act of 1934. The TCPA is codified as 47 U.S.C. 227. The TCPA restricts telephone solicitations (i.e., telemarketing) and the use of automated telephone equipment. The TCPA limits the use of automatic dialing systems, artificial or prerecorded voice messages, SMS text messages, and fax machines. It also specifies several technical requirements for fax machines, autodialers, and voice messaging systems—principally with provisions requiring identification and contact information of the entity using the device to be contained in the message.

Unless the recipient has given prior express consent, the TCPA and Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules under the TCPA generally:

When Congress passed the TCPA in 1991, it delegated the do-not-call rules to the FCC. Congress suggested that the FCC's do-not-call regulations "may require the establishment and operation of a single national database". The FCC did not adopt a single national database but rather required each company to maintain its own do-not-call database. The FCC's initial do-not-call list regulations were ineffective at proactively stopping unsolicited calls because the consumer had to make a do-not-call request for each telemarketer. In 2003, the Federal Trade Commission — not the FCC and not the agency entrusted with the TCPA — established the National Do Not Call Registry and implemented regulations prohibiting commercial telemarketers from making unsolicited sales calls to persons who did not wish to receive them. After being challenged in court by the telemarketing industry, the National Do Not Call Registry received Congressional ratification in the speedy enactment of Do-Not-Call Implementation Act.

The CAN-SPAM Act made a minor amendment to the TCPA to explicitly apply the TCPA to calls and faxes originating from outside the U.S.

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