Understanding Regulatory Compliance Requirements: The Regulations API Resource

Understanding Regulatory Compliance Requirements: The Regulations API Resource

Today we are excited to announce that the Regulations API Resource has moved to Public Beta.

With the Regulations Resource, Twilio is making it simpler to understand the regulatory compliance requirements for phone numbers in regulated geographies by allowing customers to reference the regulations with a single API call.

Accessing Regulatory Compliance requirements via API

To provision phone numbers with regulatory compliance requirements, you must follow local requirements of the country or territory, providing End-User information and Supporting Documents. Using the Regulations API Resource, you can view each geography’s telecom requirements. The Regulation list includes all countries in the Phone Number Regulations Guidelines.  

You can either request the regulations for a specific SID or a list of regulations that can be filtered based on ISO country (2 digit codes published by the International Organization for Standardization for the names of countries, dependent territories, and special areas of geographical interest), phone number type (local, national, toll-free, VoIP) and end-user type (individual, business).

Frequently asked questions about the Regulations Resource

Here’s a summary of why we’re introducing the Regulations resource and how this can benefit you. 

Why does this matter?

Regulatory compliance is about Knowing Your Customer (KYC) – many countries' and territories’ telecom regulators want to know the end-user who is answering voice calls or receiving messages.

Regulators want to know who the end-users are due to potential national threats, to prevent spam and fraud, and to generally protect the phone number as a natural resource used as an identifier of an end-user. If you have not provided the necessary regulatory information and supporting documentation for your numbers in regulated geographies, your numbers are at risk of being disconnected.

How can the Regulations resource help me?

The Regulations resource will allow you to reference regulatory information using our API instead of needing to visit our Phone Number Regulations Guidelines page to determine regulatory compliance requirements. For simply fetching requirements or comparing requirements before submitting the Bundle for an evaluation, the Regulations API resource is scalable to meet your needs.

What happens if regulations change?

Regulations can and do change. Please do not hardcode regulations into your application; we recommend that you build a framework where you can update them as regulations change.

The Regulations resource is available for you to call and populate the values required for regulatory compliance. The Regulations API resource is meant to be dynamic and referenced when required. Additionally, you can view our Regulatory Docs Changelog to see when notable changes are made to the Phone Numbers Regulatory Requirements documentation.

What actions should I take around regulatory compliance?

It’s important to know whether your existing phone numbers are compliant with regulatory requirements so they are not disconnected and you are able to utilize them going forward. To find out if you have any phone numbers that are not compliant, please visit the Compliance Report in Twilio’s web Console. If there are any phone numbers that are not compliant, either:

1. Create a new Regulatory Bundle for that country, number type, and end-user (or)
2. Assign the numbers to an existing Regulatory Bundle.

For more information, we’ve included links to documentation and other helpful resources:

REST API Documentation

• Regulations Resource

Getting Started Pages

• Create a new Regulatory Bundle with v2 RC APIs 
• Create a new Regulatory Bundle with Twilio’s web Console 

Additional Resources

• Phone Number Regulatory FAQs
• Phone Number Regulations Guidelines

What should I do next?

We know phone number regulatory compliance can be challenging. We’re here to partner with you and to provide solutions to make it easier for you to provide the necessary information and supporting documents. 

We encourage you to try the beta Regulations Resource today.

Patrick Loomis is a Product Manager on the Phone Numbers team. He loves mining for data, optimizing workflows, and building overly complex spreadsheets, even for vacations. He can be reached at ploomis [at] twilio.com.