NZ compliance

Built to follow New Zealand's anti-spam rules

Agentline gives agents real phone numbers, so we take messaging law seriously. Here's how we comply and what we expect from you.

Draft for legal review. This document is a good-faith draft prepared for Lloyd Vickery trading as Agentline and has not yet been reviewed by a lawyer. It may change before launch.

Last updated 17 October 2026

What Agentline SMS is for

Agentline SMS is for transactional and assistant messages only: an AI agent acting for you in one-to-one conversations. That includes:

replying to people who contacted you or your agent;
confirming, changing or reminding people about bookings, appointments, orders and deliveries they arranged with you;
follow-ups and updates a person has asked for;
receiving one-time codes and verification messages for your own accounts.

Marketing, promotions, newsletters, offers and bulk texts are not allowed, even with the recipient's consent. Messages that look promotional are blocked automatically, and the number of new recipients per day is capped. If you want to market to opted-in customers, use email, which must follow the rules below.

How NZ delivery works

New Zealand mobile carriers don't offer two-way application-to-person (A2P) SMS on ordinary mobile numbers; it's normally only available through short codes. Agentline uses dedicated NZ 028 business messaging numbers from a licensed New Zealand carrier partner, which are built for two-way business texting and reach mobile users on every NZ network. Each number is used by one Agentline customer only.

Recipients see your 028 number and can reply as normal.
Outbound SMS goes to standard NZ mobile numbers only, not landlines, short codes, premium-rate or international numbers.
The carrier doesn't provide delivery receipts, so a sent message shows as "sent" rather than "delivered", and inbound delivery is best-effort.
All outbound messages also pass through the carrier's own fraud and rate-limit checks.

Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act 2007

The Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act 2007 (UEMA) applies to commercial electronic messages (email, SMS and instant messages) that have a New Zealand link. The Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) enforces it. Under the Act, a commercial message must:

Have consent. Only send to people who agreed to receive it (express consent), or where consent can reasonably be inferred from an existing relationship, or where an address was conspicuously published for business contact and the message is relevant to that role.
Identify the sender. Include accurate information about who authorised the message and how to contact them.
Include a working unsubscribe. Every commercial message needs a functional, free way to opt out. Unsubscribe requests must be honoured within 5 working days. Agentline honours them immediately.
Not use harvested address lists. Using address-harvesting software, or lists made with it, is prohibited.

As the account holder, you are the sender of messages your agent sends, and you're responsible for consent. Agentline is the carriage service and adds the safeguards below. Because Agentline SMS can't carry marketing at all, the UEMA mostly matters for email your agent sends and for borderline messages: if in doubt, it's probably marketing, so don't send it by SMS.

Opt-out handling

Replies of STOP, STOPALL, UNSUBSCRIBE, CANCEL, END, QUIT or OPTOUT opt the sender out of messages from that Agentline number straight away, and they get a confirmation text.
Sending further SMS or calls to an opted-out recipient is blocked at the API level. Your agent gets a clear recipient_opted_out error.
START or UNSTOP re-subscribes. HELP replies with who operates the number and how to report abuse.
Opt-outs are honoured immediately, well inside the UEMA's 5-working-day limit, and are kept per number so a person who opts out stays opted out.
Every outbound email includes a footer identifying it as sent by an AI agent via Agentline, with a link to report abuse.

Sender ID rules for New Zealand

SMS is always sent from your own assigned 028 number. Alphanumeric sender IDs (like "MYSHOP") and numbers you don't hold with us are rejected, because NZ carriers don't support them on business messaging numbers and they're a common scam technique.
Outbound SMS and calls go to standard New Zealand mobile numbers (020, 021, 022, 027, 028, 029) only. This also prevents international SMS pumping fraud.
We don't support short codes, premium-rate numbers or spoofing caller ID.
Outbound calls identify themselves as automated at the start of the call.

Automatic safety checks

Promotional SMS (sales, discount codes, "buy now", "limited time" and similar) is blocked.
Link shorteners (bit.ly, tinyurl and similar) are blocked in outbound messages.
Messages combining phishing phrases ("verify your account", "unpaid toll", "tax refund") with a link are blocked.
Messages that mention NZ banks, IRD, NZ Post, Waka Kotahi or other common impersonation targets together with a login or payment link are blocked.
Per-account rate limits apply: 10 SMS a minute, 150 a day, and a cap on new recipients each day. Similar limits apply to email and calls.
Blocked messages are recorded in your audit log with the reason, so you can see exactly what happened.

Acceptable use policy

You must not use Agentline, or let your agent use it, to:

send marketing, promotional or bulk SMS of any kind, or send spam or commercial email without consent;
send premium-rate messages, or messages that resell third-party content;
impersonate any person, business or government agency, or send phishing, smishing or scam content;
harass, threaten, stalk or abuse anyone, or send content that is objectionable under the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification Act 1993 or harmful under the Harmful Digital Communications Act 2015;
create accounts in bulk, evade bans, or defeat another service's fraud controls ("SIM farming");
commit or facilitate fraud, money laundering or any other offence;
contact emergency services (111) through the service, which isn't supported and must not be relied on;
resell numbers or inboxes without our written agreement.

We may suspend sending, or suspend an account, immediately where we reasonably suspect a breach, and we cooperate with the DIA, NZ Police and carriers.

Reporting abuse

Received an unwanted message from an Agentline number or address? Report it here or email abuse@agentline.nz. We review reports within one working day. You can also forward spam texts to 7726 (free) for the DIA, and report scams to CERT NZ.

Audit log

Every send, block, opt-out, sign-in, API key change and billing event is recorded in a per-account audit log that you can view in the dashboard. We keep it for 12 months to investigate abuse and help you show compliance.