Florida Telephone Solicitation Act

The Florida Telephone Solicitation Act (FTSA) regulates telephonic sales calls — telephone calls, text messages, and voicemail transmissions made to solicit the sale of consumer goods or services, an extension of consumer credit, or information for later solicitation. Enacted in 1987 as a basic telemarketing rule, it was transformed in 2021 into one of the most active consumer class-action statutes in the country, pared back in 2023 to restore balance between consumer protection and legitimate e-commerce marketing, and is now being read against a technology its drafters never contemplated: AI systems that select numbers, compose messages, and speak to consumers in synthetic voices indistinguishable from a person. A business that texts or calls Florida numbers — from anywhere — needs to understand what the statute requires, what the 2023 amendments changed, and how the federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act’s treatment of AI is likely to be borrowed by Florida courts.

Our Miami intellectual property attorneys defend businesses, marketing platforms, and lead generators in FTSA and TCPA class actions and demand-letter disputes in Florida’s state and federal courts, and build the consent, STOP-handling, and vendor controls that keep a campaign — including an AI-driven one — inside the statute.

What the FTSA Requires — and What It Pays

Prior express written consent for automated calls, a Florida do-not-call list, calling-hour and frequency limits, and $500 per violation

The statute’s substantive rules govern who may be called, how, when, and with what technology. A telephone solicitor may not call a number on the Florida “no sales solicitation calls” list, may not contact a consumer who has previously said not to, must identify himself or herself by true first and last name and the business on whose behalf the call is made immediately on contact, may call only between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. local time, may not call more than three times in a 24-hour period on the same subject, and may not block or falsify caller identification. The provision that drives litigation is § 501.059(8)(a): no person may make, or knowingly allow to be made, an unsolicited telephonic sales call that involves an automated system for the selection and dialing of telephone numbers, the playing of a recorded message when a connection is completed, or the transmission of a prerecorded voicemail, without the called party’s prior express written consent.

The 2021 and 2023 Amendments: From Litigation Surge to Recalibration

How a 1987 telemarketing rule became a class-action vehicle, and how the Legislature pulled it back

In 2021, CS/SB 1120 (effective July 1, 2021) added the private right of action, the $500-per-violation statutory damages with trebling for willful violations, the prior-express-written-consent requirement for automated systems, and the express inclusion of text messages. The automated-system provision reached any technology used for the selection or dialing of numbers, so a platform that merely dialed or texted numbers from a human-curated list could trigger liability. In Turizo v. Subway Franchisee Advertising Fund Trust, Ltd., 603 F. Supp. 3d 1334 (S.D. Fla. 2022), the court held that a consumer plausibly alleged an FTSA violation where the defendant used an automated system to select his number and transmit marketing texts without human involvement. Hundreds of putative class actions followed, with Florida briefly rivaling the TCPA docket.

The Legislature responded with CS/CS/HB 761, effective on the Governor’s signature on May 25, 2023. The amendment narrowed the automated-system trigger to systems used for the selection and dialing of numbers — both functions, performed automatically — so that uploading a curated list to a dialer no longer violates the statute by itself; broadened the signature requirement to include any act demonstrating express consent, such as checking a box or replying affirmatively to a campaign; limited the statute to unsolicited calls, with defenses for calls made in response to an express request, in connection with an existing contract or debt, or to a consumer with a prior business relationship; added the STOP-notice requirement and 15-day safe harbor for text claims; and applied those changes retroactively to any putative class action not certified before the effective date. Federal and state courts have since upheld the amended statute and its retroactive application, and FTSA filings fell sharply — though the statute remains a live risk for any campaign that texts Florida numbers without a documented consent and a working STOP process.

AI in Telemarketing: How the FTSA Is Likely to Treat Synthetic Voices and AI Dialers

No Florida decision yet — but the TCPA’s answer, and the statute’s own language, point the same way

The FTSA is nicknamed the “mini-TCPA” because it tracks the federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991, and Florida courts routinely borrow TCPA interpretations when the statutes’ language aligns. On February 8, 2024, the Federal Communications Commission issued a Declaratory Ruling (FCC 24-17) confirming that AI-generated voices — neural text-to-speech and voice cloning that produce synthetic, human-sounding speech — are “artificial or prerecorded” voices under the TCPA, so calls using them require the same prior express consent as robocalls and are subject to the same identification and opt-out rules. The Commission has since proposed rules that would require disclosure at the outset of a call that the caller is using AI. No Florida court has yet applied the FTSA to an AI voice agent or an AI-driven texting platform, but three features of the statute make that result likely.

• The automated-system trigger turns on “a technology.” Section 501.059(8)(a) reaches any technology that both selects and dials numbers — language broad enough for a 1990s predictive dialer and for an AI system that chooses whom to contact and places the call. An AI campaign that performs both functions without prior express written consent falls within the provision on its face.
• A synthetic voice is a recorded message. The statute separately requires consent for calls that play a recorded message when a connection is completed or transmit a prerecorded voicemail. A generated voice is not a live human, and the FCC’s reading of the parallel federal language is the obvious persuasive authority.
• The identification and STOP rules apply regardless of who — or what — is speaking. An AI agent must identify the business immediately on contact, may not call outside permitted hours or more than three times a day, and an AI texting platform must recognize STOP and cease within 15 days.

The 2023 amendment gives businesses a real argument on the other side: where a human curates the list and the AI system only dials, or an AI selects the audience and a human places the call, the system arguably does not perform both selection and dialing. Whether courts will treat an integrated AI platform’s human-in-the-loop configuration as taking it outside the definition is the question the first Florida cases will decide, and the answer will depend on the records the defendant kept.

FTSA and TCPA Compared

Two statutes, one campaign — and different answers on autodialers, consent, and damages

What Businesses Should Look Out For

Consent, records, disclosure, STOP handling, and vendor accountability

• Obtain prior express written consent before any automated or AI-driven outreach. For AI voice, SMS chatbots, and generative marketing texts to Florida numbers, capture consent that names the automated and AI-generated nature of the calls, the number authorized, and the no-purchase-condition disclosure — and retain the record.
• Keep campaign records that show who selected and who dialed. The “selection and dialing” defense is only as good as the evidence: list-curation logs, dialer configurations, and human-in-the-loop records decide whether a system meets the statutory definition.
• Disclose the AI at the top of the call. Identify the synthetic voice as an AI agent, name the business, and state the purpose immediately on contact; the statute’s identification rule requires the business disclosure, and the FCC’s proposed rules and Florida’s consumer-protection statutes point toward disclosing the AI as well.
• Build STOP handling into every texting platform. Recognize STOP and common variants, cease within 15 days or sooner, confirm once, and log the request; the safe harbor is a gate only if the process works.
• Scrub against both do-not-call lists and honor hours and frequency. Florida’s list and the national registry, area-code time zones, and the three-per-day cap apply to human and AI campaigns alike.
• Make AI vendors and messaging platforms accountable. Require documentation of how their systems select, generate, and transmit calls and texts; built-in consent, STOP, hours, and frequency safeguards; audit rights; and indemnity for FTSA and TCPA claims arising from their tools.

Website tracking and chat-recording claims under Chapter 934 — the other statutory wiretap and consent risk facing the same marketing stack — are covered in our Florida Security of Communications Act Matters summary; how the FTSA fits with Florida’s privacy torts and consumer-protection statutes in our Right of Privacy Matters summary; and the content of the marketing message itself in our False Advertising Matters summary.

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