Opt-in vs TPS

Have you ever considered how difficult it is to establish whether an individual has registered with the Telephone Preference Service (TPS) AFTER they have opted in somewhere? Any company caught up in a complaint of this nature would be able to confirm this is a grey area of the current regulations.

We have never understood why the TPS don’t record and distribute the date that the individual has registered? Surely this will make things much easier for marketing companies to ensure that the data is still legitimately opted in?

We have found a partial way around this. Being TPS licence holders, we download a copy of the TPS every day and keep a record of the date in which a record is added. This helps us to establish when a record has registered and whether the opt-in held, was made before or after this date.

If the opt-in held was made after the TPS registration then the opt-in should be valid. If however the opt-in is dated before the TPS registration then it could be argued that the opt-in is no longer valid! That’s the grey area we mentioned earlier!

When screening your data we can supply you with the dates the number appeared on the TPS register allowing you to remove any records where the opt-in dates are before the TPS registration date.

This additional check can help you to remain compliant and demonstrates best practice. We recommend this service to all of our customers and highly recommend the service to those companies who are regulated and have to hold a specific opt-ins. However this is a useful additional check for any company that holds a dated opt-in for a given record.