The distribution of bulk SMS into New Zealand is now tightly controlled.

Please note, this article does not purport to provide any legal advice, it is important that you seek independent legal advice for your specific situation.

The practical implications of the Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act (UEMA) 2007 legislation of New Zealand are that all commercial SMS messages to New Zealand mobiles must:

• Only be sent to people who have explicitly consented to receiving marketing or promotional SMS (you cannot imply consent),
• Opting out must be possible by simply replying to the message in a specific, obvious way,
• Be sent from a number (no alpha numeric senders) because you can't reply (and therefore automatically opt out) from an alpha numeric sender,
• Include the business name of the sender and their contact details,
• Be sent via a short code, dedicated to a particular sender,
• Short codes must be applied for, and distinguish between, marketing and transactional messages, so that replies to all marketing messages are free, and
• Must comply with Do Not Call / Do Not Disturb Registries, and therefore be sent through a compliant telecommunications network.

These requirements are in response to concerns around scammer's use of SMS to trick and defraud citizens. An SMS arriving on your phone is harder to test or identify as a scam compared to an email message which can contain more visual clues, is far more likely to be opened due to it being on your phone, and therefore more strict controls were deemed necessary.

Enudge of course provides an unsubscribe facility via instructions included at the end of every SMS, which simply requires the recipient to reply with 'REM' to be removed (unsubscribe) from your SMS database.

Marketing vs Transactional

In New Zealand, the anti-spam legislation makes a distinction between commercial marketing and transaction messages, which is determined by the content. If there is any part of the content of your message (or where it leads people to) that is trying to make a sale or profit in any way, then it is most likely to be deemed to be a marketing message.

The impact of the decision between marketing and transactional is as follows:

• Short codes are in a different format - generally transactional short codes are 4 digits long and start with a '3', and marketing short codes are 4 digits long and start with an '8'.
• The fee for replies to marketing messages are paid for by the original sender (not the recipient sending the reply).
• Transactional messages must not contain any marketing content i.e. they must be solely informational as part of providing products / services to existing customers.

The application process for a short code (marketing or transactional) is quite involved, and can take 1 - 2 months to be processed and approved. You must supply examples of the content of the messages that you are planning to send, and provide evidence supporting your choice of marketing or transactional type.

Applying requires pre-planning. You can't just give some random example messages, you must supply the messages you are actually going to use, or run the risk that your messages will be stopped from being delivered, when they differ from the provided sample messages. SMS messages to New Zealanders are actively monitored by the controlling authority.

If you are seen to be doing the wrong thing, and have your messages stopped, it can take weeks / months to be approved again for sending. The Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) has successfully brought cases against organisations and individuals breaching the law, involving significant fines. Currently the maximum penalty is $500,000 NZD.

Australia is planning changes to their SMS legislation to also force businesses sending SMS messages to do so via registered sender IDs - more about that in a future Enudge article!

 

Enudge can assist you with the application to send SMS into New Zealand; don't hesitate to reach out if you are planning to communicate by text message to New Zealanders. Please allow 1 - 2 months to have your application processed, and please note that this service is only available to Enudge Enterprise Accounts.