Consent capture

A complete consent record is more than a boolean. It should hold the identifier consented for, the timestamp, the exact disclosure text shown or spoken, the mechanism — web form, recorded call, signed document — a reference such as an IP address or session identifier, and the scope of what was agreed. Scope is the field most often omitted and most often decisive, because consent to service notifications is not consent to marketing.

Consent expires in practice even where no statute names a period. A record from years ago attached to a number that may since have been reassigned is weak evidence, and many organisations set an internal maximum age after which consent must be refreshed. Consent obtained by a third party is weaker still: purchased lists routinely arrive with consent records that do not name the organisation actually placing the call.

Revocation has to flow back into the same system that authorises dialling. A record that captures consent but has no path to mark it withdrawn will keep authorising calls after the person has asked to stop, which is the exact scenario that produces liability. Consent and suppression are two states of one record, not two independent datasets.