The AAPC Board of Directors has adopted the following guidelines to provide essential principles and ethical standards for individuals and organizations engaged in messaging over short code, toll-free, rich business messaging and local (10 DLC) numbers. Given the explosive growth and importance of text messaging, these guidelines outline best practices, transparency, and accountability, ensuring political texting vendors and their clients maintain integrity while contacting voters for various campaigns and causes. Adhering to these standards fosters trust and credibility within the voting community and is expected of all AAPC members.

Transparency and Integrity

Members shall not engage in activities that harm their clients or the overall profession.

 1. Members shall act with honesty, integrity, and transparency.

2. Members should ensure that third-party organizations appointed on behalf of their organization meet the highest standards.

3. Members should be accountable for the outcomes of their messaging efforts, regularly reporting results and progress to clients and stakeholders. Transparency should extend to the number of successful deliveries, opt outs, and cost per message.

4. Members should strive to maintain a high level of professional competence by staying informed about the latest industry trends, best practices, and technological advancements

5. Members should foster a culture of continuous improvement, seeking feedback from clients, donors, and other stakeholders to identify areas for enhancement and adapt their strategies accordingly.

Compliance with Laws and Regulations

 7. Members shall comply and stay up-to-date with all applicable local, state, and federal laws and regulations.

8. Members shall ensure proper recordkeeping for clients for consumer protection.

9. Members shall ensure their clients are posting robust legal documentation (i.e. Privacy Policy and Mobile Terms and Conditions)

Data Protection and Privacy

10. Members shall handle data with the utmost care and compliance with applicable laws and regulations.

     a. i. Members shall use their best efforts to safeguard against data breaches and ensure the security of voter information, including name, address, and other personally identifiable information (PII).

     b. ii. Members must abide by AAPC’s Data Privacy and Compliance Guiding Principles and AAPC’s Digital Fundraising Guidelines.

Consumer Protections

11. Members should clearly identify the End Sender in every message. The End Sender is the organization the text messages are sent for – campaign, PAC, 501(c), etc.

12. Members will advise End Senders to maintain centralized opt outs across all vendors. 

13. Members will properly opt out numbers that explicitly ask to be opted out in a timely fashion.

14. Members should request and honor opt out lists from their End Senders.

15. Members will not use multiple vendors (CSPs) or channels (i.e. short code to 10DLC) to text numbers which have already opted out of messaging for the End Sender from another vendor (CSP). 

16. Members shall not snowshoe registrations (i.e. register End Sender A then run messaging traffic for End Sender B on End Sender A’s registration)

17. Members should ensure that messages are not deliberately designed to deceive or defraud, particularly among vulnerable populations (i.e. low income or seniors).

18. Members should exercise vigilance in ensuring that voters are not excessively texted, such as ten texts a day to the same person, from  a single End Sender in an attempt to exhaust, harass or confuse the voter into donating or taking action.

19. This vigilance should also extend to fundraising texts sent from multiple End Senders to the same voter in one day.

Non-Discrimination

20. Members shall refrain from disseminating content that is discriminatory or prejudicial based on race, ethnicity, gender, religion, sexual orientation, or any other protected characteristic.

Avoid Conflicts of Interest

21. Members shall disclose any potential conflicts of interest to relevant stakeholders.

22. Members shall avoid conflicts of interest that may compromise impartiality, independence, or integrity in messaging activities.

Examples of bad practices:

• Failing to honor opt out requests.
• Failing to disclose the entity sending the messages.
• Using misleading sender information to appear the solicitation came from an opponent, government entity, official or signer that you are not a representative of.
• Conveying false or deceptive information.
• Sending more than two messages to an individual in one day unrelated to a critical event (e.g., end of month, end of quarter, debate nights, time-sensitive voting events).
• Sending ten texts a day to the same voter in an attempt to exhaust or confuse the voter into donating or taking action.
• Sending more than ten fundraising texts to an individual from multiple End Senders.