# OPS-113 — A state may impose its own opt-out and identification duties

> Where a state requires it, opt-out replies must be honoured and accurate sender identification maintained under that state's own rules.

- **Rule ID:** OPS-113
- **Layer:** Operational (`OPERATIONAL`)
- **Checks:** `opt-out handling and sender identification, per state`
- **Severity:** HIGH — Rejected by at least one carrier or provider, and a common cause of failure at the rest.
- **When it bites:** Falls due after approval, once you are live and sending
- **How it is detected:** Human check — only someone holding the document can settle it
- **Fix type:** Wait on an external system or a required interval
- **Required by:** state law (VA)
- **Applies:** Applies to every 10DLC registration.
- **Canonical URL:** https://ekas.io/rules/10dlc/operational/ops-113/

## Why this rule exists

Virginia and states like it restate obligations the federal rules already impose, which sounds redundant and is not: the state version comes with its own enforcement route and its own penalties, so a failure is actionable twice. It matters most for sender identification, where the federal framing is a carrier expectation and the state framing is a statute.

## How to fix it

Identify the brand in every message and honour every opt-out immediately, which satisfies the state rules and the federal ones together. Done when no message leaves without the brand name in it.

## Check this yourself

**Does every message leaving your programme carry the brand name, and is every opt-out honoured immediately?**

1. Treat the strictest state as the standard rather than maintaining per-state behaviour: identification and immediate opt-out are cheap universally.
2. Read a real delivered message and confirm the brand is identifiable in it.

*What wrong looks like:* Virginia and states like it restate federal duties with their own enforcement route and penalties, so one failure is actionable twice.

## Notes

State law applied to traffic we cannot see. What the user has to do is treat the strictest state as the standard rather than maintaining per-state behaviour — the identification and opt-out duties are cheap to satisfy universally and expensive to get wrong once.