The phone field must be optional on a general-purpose form
The requirementstatement
On a form that exists for something other than SMS signup, the phone-number field must not be required to submit.
- Severityseverity
- HighHIGHRejected by at least one carrier or provider, and a common cause of failure at the rest.
- When it bitesphase
- Gates approvalapprovalGet this wrong and the brand or campaign is refused at registration.
- What is checkedobject
- opt-in form phone field required attribute
- Where it liveslayer
- Consent flowCONSENT_FLOW
- How Ekas settles itdetectability
- AI · crawlCRAWL
- Needs your live site or policy page fetched and read. Ekas crawls it the way a reviewer would.
- What the fix involvesfailureClass
- Fix the websiteTERMINAL_WEBSITE
- The fix lives on your site. No amount of rewording the form clears it.
- Who requires itauthorities
- BandwidthTelnyxTwilio
- When it appliesapplicabilityText
- Applies when consent was collected by web form, account settings and third party.
Why this rule existsrationale
A required number on a contact or quote form takes the number as the price of the enquiry, and everything downstream treats that as a collected lead rather than an opt-in. Bandwidth states it flatly — phone numbers cannot be a required field on the website where opt-in is collected — because a number given under compulsion cannot be told apart later from one given willingly.
How to fix itremediation
Drop the required attribute and the asterisk from the phone input on any form whose purpose is not SMS signup, and confirm the form submits without it. Done when a visitor can send you an enquiry giving only an email address.
Common mistakespitfalls
- A form whose entire purpose IS SMS signup may require the number — the field is the point of the form, and this rule does not apply to it.
Provider rejection codescodes
The code you get back when this rule is what failed, and whether that provider lets you resubmit.
| Provider | Code | Resubmit |
|---|---|---|
| Twiliogen2 | 30931 | Yes |
| Twiliogen2 | 30923 | Yes |
Notesnotes
DIVERGENCE, canonical form taken: Bandwidth forbids a required phone field outright; Telnyx and the website-evidence research allow one provided the SMS consent control is itself optional. The strict-superset rule takes Bandwidth, so this fires wherever the form has another purpose. Where the phone field genuinely must stay required for that purpose, CON-043 and CON-044 are the rules that make it survivable.
Rules you will hit next
Other consent flow rules at the same severity. A registration is judged as a whole, not rule by rule.
CON-017An offline opt-in still needs a findable business behind itHighHIGHCON-033Opt-in evidence must be the live surface, not a mockup of itHighHIGHCON-038Verbally-collected informational campaigns need the mockup and the messagesHighHIGHCON-044A required phone field must carry an SMS disclaimer beside itHighHIGHCON-064A kiosk or terminal must not pre-fill the consumer's numberHighHIGHCON-071The decline path must be as usable as the accept pathHighHIGH
CON-042 is one of 101 consent flow rules in the 915-rule 10DLC registry. Free to cite under CC BY 4.0.