# CON-044 — A required phone field must carry an SMS disclaimer beside it

> Where the phone-number field is mandatory, the text next to it must say whether the number will be used for text messages.

- **Rule ID:** CON-044
- **Layer:** Consent flow (`CONSENT_FLOW`)
- **Checks:** `text adjacent to the phone field`
- **Severity:** HIGH — Rejected by at least one carrier or provider, and a common cause of failure at the rest.
- **When it bites:** Gates approval — get this wrong and registration is refused
- **How it is detected:** AI judgement over the crawled website or policy page
- **Fix type:** Fix the website — no form edit clears it
- **Required by:** Telnyx, Zoom (ISV)
- **Applies:** Applies when consent was collected by web form, checkout, account settings, QR code and third party.
- **Canonical URL:** https://ekas.io/rules/10dlc/consent-flow/con-044/

## Why this rule exists

Somebody typing a mandatory number needs to know at that moment what it will be used for — a number given for a delivery call is not a number given for marketing texts, and the difference is decided by what was written beside the box. This is the disclosure half of the required-field problem: even a form that legitimately needs the number owes the consumer that sentence.

## How to fix it

Put a one-line disclaimer directly under the phone input saying what the number is for and whether texts are part of it. Done when the sentence sits within the field's own block rather than in a disclosure lower down the page.

## Example of a compliant value

```text
Mobile number (required — we text delivery updates to this number). Marketing texts are separate and optional; see the box below.
```

## Common mistakes

- A disclaimer that appears only after the field is focused or filled is not present at the moment the consumer decides to type.

## Notes

Distinct from CON-043, which requires a separate optional CONTROL where the number is mandatory. This rule is about the TEXT beside the field, and a form can satisfy one and fail the other.