Insights on Mobile

Earlier this year, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) adopted changes to its Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) regulation to include more specific requirements concerning the ability of consumers to opt out of robocalls and robotexts.

Just before Christmas, The Joint Commission (TJC) published an update clarifying its previous guidance regarding practitioners’ use of text messaging. TJC now says that practitioners may communicate with each other via secure text messaging systems.

Recently another federal district court ruled that text messages sent from a group messaging platform were not autodialed, even when transmitted in bulk, because of the significant human intervention required to initiate a text message campaign through the platform.

On April 5, 2016, Chairwoman Edith Ramirez of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced the release of a new web-based tool to assist developers of mobile health apps in understanding what federal laws they must comply with.