# POL-045 — An offline opt-in does not relax the policy content requirements

> The policy pages must satisfy the full content requirements even where opt-in never happens on the web.

- **Rule ID:** POL-045
- **Layer:** Policy pages (`POLICY_PAGE`)
- **Checks:** `privacy policy body + terms body`
- **Severity:** BLOCKING — Breaking this rule gets the submission rejected outright.
- **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 privacy policy or SMS terms
- **Required by:** AWS, Twilio, Bandwidth
- **Applies:** Applies when consent was collected by live verbal, IVR, paper form, point of sale and imported list.
- **Canonical URL:** https://ekas.io/rules/10dlc/policy-page/pol-045/

## Why this rule exists

Programmes that collect consent on a call, on paper or at a counter tend to treat the website as decoration, so the policy is whatever was published years ago — and the reviewer applies exactly the same content checks to it as to an e-commerce brand. Nothing about collecting consent offline reduces what the consumer is entitled to read.

## How to fix it

Bring the published policy and SMS terms up to the same standard a web opt-in would need — the mobile non-sharing clause, the programme description, frequency, rates, STOP and HELP — before submitting the offline flow. Done when the documents would pass on their own, with the consent method left out of it.

## Notes

An anti-exemption rule: it exists to be applied to registrations that assume the requirements are lighter, and it points at the rest of the layer rather than adding a requirement of its own.