Many companies use automated dialers to help their sales teams drive revenue or improve customer service. Companies use automated dialers to eliminate the need for manual dialing when making cold calls or checking in with existing clients.
The Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), which Congress passed back in 1991, imposes restrictions on calls and texts placed with automatic dialer systems. The TCPA was the law that established the national “do not call list.”
Recently the U.S. Supreme Court answered a lingering question about the TCPA — what exactly is an autodialer? In Facebook v. Duguid, the court unanimously held that in order to qualify as an autodialer under the TCPA a dialer must not only store numbers using a random or sequential number generator, it also must have generated those number in the first place using a random or sequential process.
Previously, lower courts had interpreted “autodialer” to be equipment capable of storing numbers and dialing those numbers at random. That led to a rush of litigation against companies who used phone numbers they’d obtained through some other (non-random) way, on the basis that those numbers were dialed at random.
The takeaway is that fewer calling systems will qualify as an “autodialer.” If your telephone system cannot generate random or sequential numbers, it is not an autodialer under the TCPA.
The decision should simplify compliance and reduce TCPA cases. Note, however, that the Supreme Court’s decision does not eliminate potential liability for using “artificial or prerecorded voice” calls. If your system uses machine/recorded voices, you may still be subject to TCPA liability.
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