Telemarketing consent must retain the request, its purpose and the answer

The requirementstatement

Where the Telemarketing Sales Rule applies, the programme must retain the consent request as it was presented, the purpose consent was sought for, and the consent actually given with its date and the consenting party.

Severityseverity: BlockingBLOCKINGBreaking this rule gets the submission rejected. There is no partial credit.
When it bitesphase: Gates approvalapprovalGet this wrong and the brand or campaign is refused at registration.
What is checkedobject: campaign.message_flow + privacy policy
Where it liveslayer: OperationalOPERATIONAL
How Ekas settles itdetectability: AI · formAI_FORM; A semantic question about what you wrote: whether a description matches a use case, whether a name looks like a filed entity. Judged by a model against written criteria.
What the fix involvesfailureClass: Fix the fieldRETRY_FIELD; A better value in the form fixes it. Ekas can rewrite it and re-check.
Who requires itauthorities: FTC
When it appliesapplicabilityText: Applies when the use case is MARKETING, MIXED, SWEEPSTAKE and LOW_VOLUME.

Why this rule existsrationale

The TSR is stricter than the carrier framework and is enforced by a different body, so a brand can satisfy every 10DLC requirement and still be exposed. What it adds is the request: the FTC wants the ask preserved in the same form the consumer met it, because a permissive record of the answer says nothing about what the question was. The rule also settles a common shortcut explicitly — an IP address plus a timestamp is not a record of consent.

How to fix itremediation

Retain three things per consumer: a copy of the consent request in the format it was presented, the purpose it was sought for, and the consent given with its date, the consenting person and their number. Done when a record answers "what were they asked, what for, and what did they say" without anybody reconstructing it.

A compliant exampleexample

Each marketing opt-in stores: the rendered disclosure as shown (disclosure_version 2026-03-a), purpose="recurring promotional offers from Acme Coffee", and the consent event — 2026-03-04, Jane Doe, +1 415-555-0134, checkbox ticked.

Common mistakespitfalls

Storing the current disclosure text rather than the version shown at the time satisfies neither half — the request must be the one that consumer met.

Notesnotes

Absorbs OPS-211 (purpose), OPS-212 (the consent, date, name and number) and OPS-213, which states the sufficiency test rather than a fourth field. Tagged to the marketing-style use cases because the TSR reaches telemarketing; a transactional programme outside its scope is not failed for the absence.

Rules you will hit next

6 other rules read campaign.message_flow + privacy policy. Fixing one field to satisfy a single rule is how a resubmission trades one rejection for another, so read these before you change anything.

OPS-056Opt-out records must keep the words the consumer actually sentBlockingBLOCKING OPS-085The programme must scrub deactivated numbers before sendingBlockingBLOCKING OPS-236An IVR opt-in must log the prompt, the keypress, the time and the callBlockingBLOCKING OPS-261Only the charity may use the numbers a charity collectsBlockingBLOCKING OPS-199Consent records must capture all seven required fieldsHighHIGH OPS-207The consent record must name the page the opt-in came fromHighHIGH

All operational rules

OPS-210 is one of 139 operational rules in the 915-rule 10DLC registry. Free to cite under CC BY 4.0.