# OPS-239 — Declining to be recorded must not block the opt-in

> A programme taking spoken consent must have a documented no-recording evidence path, and must never refuse a consumer the opt-in because they declined recording.

- **Rule ID:** OPS-239
- **Layer:** Operational (`OPERATIONAL`)
- **Checks:** `campaign.message_flow`
- **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 submitted form
- **Fix type:** Fix the field — a better value in the form clears it
- **Required by:** FTC, practice
- **Applies:** Applies when consent was collected by live verbal.
- **Canonical URL:** https://ekas.io/rules/10dlc/operational/ops-239/

## Why this rule exists

Recording is not always available — the consumer says no, or the call crosses into an all-party-consent state — and a contact centre with no fallback does one of two harmful things: it drops the opt-in the consumer asked for, or it takes it with no evidence at all. Both are avoidable with an attestation that carries the agent, the timestamp and the script version, which is what reviewers accept in place of audio.

## How to fix it

Describe the fallback: a contemporaneous CRM attestation carrying the agent ID, the timestamp, the script version and the consumer's verbatim assent. Done when the flow says what happens when a consumer declines recording, and the answer is not "we cannot enrol them".

## Example of a compliant value

```text
If the consumer declines recording, the agent stores the verbatim assent, agent ID, timestamp and script version in the CRM; the opt-in proceeds on that record.
```

## Common mistakes

- A fallback that only records "consent given: yes" is the same evidentiary gap the recording was there to close.