Emergency Purpose Exception
Genuine health-and-safety messages need no consent. The exception covers the message's purpose, not the sender — and dies the moment marketing rides along.
The TCPA exempts communications "made for emergency purposes," defined by the FCC as calls necessary in situations affecting the health and safety of consumers. Utility outage alerts, school lockdown notices, evacuation orders, and public-health exposure notifications are the model cases.
The exception is purpose-and-content limited, not sender-limited: the same school that may text a lockdown alert without consent needs consent for fundraising messages. COVID-era guidance confirmed health authorities could send pandemic-related informational texts, while marketing dressed as safety information ("our store's COVID hours — plus 20% off!") stayed actionable.
Operationally: keep emergency message templates segregated from marketing campaigns, document the triggering circumstance, and never piggyback promotional content on an emergency send.
Frequently asked questions
Related glossary terms
The Telephone Consumer Protection Act is a US federal law (47 U.S.C. § 227) that restricts marketing calls and texts to mobile phones, with statutory damages of $500–$1,500 per violation.
Prior express consent is the TCPA's baseline consent tier: a consumer who knowingly provides their number for a purpose may receive non-marketing texts related to it. Marketing requires the higher tier, prior express written consent.
Transactional SMS is non-promotional messaging tied to an existing transaction or relationship — receipts, delivery updates, appointment reminders, 2FA — sendable under prior express consent rather than written marketing consent.