What is the TCPA?

Congress enacted the Telephone Consumer Protection Act in 1991. It regulates specific calling technologies and telemarketing conduct; it does not make every unwanted call illegal.

The level of consent required can depend on whether a message is marketing and what technology is used. FCC rules recognize that consumers may revoke consent through reasonable means, and covered callers must generally honor revocation requests within no more than 10 business days.

The FCC’s proposed one-to-one consent rule was vacated by a federal appeals court and is not currently in effect.

The statute permits a private action for actual monetary loss or $500 per violation, whichever is greater. A court may increase an award to as much as $1,500 per violation when it finds a violation was willful or knowing. These figures are not an automatic payout or prediction of any case result.

In Facebook v. Duguid, the Supreme Court held that an automatic telephone dialing system must use a random or sequential number generator to store or produce numbers. Artificial or prerecorded voice restrictions remain a separate part of the law.