You will be able to decide whether a call or message needs a DNC check and how to run one.
You have a fresh list of forty phone numbers and a free afternoon. Your opener is ready from module 3, your first call is two taps away, and checking anything feels like a delay. Then you remember a colleague who got a letter from a regulator about a text campaign, and you wonder whether any of these numbers is one you should not be calling.
That wondering is the right instinct. This lesson explains what Singapore's Do Not Call Registry covers, when you must check it, and how to build the check into your routine so it stops feeling like a delay. It explains how the rules work. It is not legal advice, and for a specific case your compliance team or a lawyer is the right person to ask.
The Do Not Call Registry is run by the Personal Data Protection Commission, the PDPC, under Singapore's Personal Data Protection Act, the PDPA. It lets people register their Singapore telephone numbers to say they do not want to receive marketing messages on them.
There are three separate registers: one for voice calls, one for text messages and one for fax messages. A person can register a number on one, two or all three. So a number might be on the voice call register but not the text register, which means the answer to "can I contact this number?" depends on how you plan to contact it.
The rules apply to marketing messages, the kind that offer, advertise or promote goods, services or business opportunities. That covers most prospecting calls and texts: a call to introduce your services, a text offering a review, a message inviting someone to a sales seminar. A purely service message, such as a reminder about an appointment the customer already booked, is treated differently. The PDPC's guidance sets out which messages count as marketing and which do not, and it is worth reading before you decide a message falls outside.
The registry covers voice calls, text messages and faxes sent to Singapore numbers. Other channels, such as email and messaging apps, have their own rules or questions, and how the DNC provisions apply to a given channel is something to check on the PDPC website rather than assume. Lesson 5.3, WhatsApp etiquette for first contact, comes back to this for WhatsApp.
The rules also treat messages differently depending on who receives them. A marketing message to an individual in a personal capacity is the clear case. Messages sent to a business for its business purposes are handled differently under the PDPA, and the PDPC's guidance explains where that line falls. If most of your prospecting is to companies, read that part of the guidance closely rather than assuming you are outside the rules.
Before you make a marketing call or send a marketing text to a Singapore number, you either check the number against the relevant register or hold clear consent from the person to receive that kind of message from you. The PDPA expects that consent to be clear and unambiguous, and in a form you can show later, such as a signed form or a recorded opt-in. A vague "they gave me their card" does not meet that bar.
Knowing someone does not by itself change this. Darren, the adviser, assumed that calling a former schoolmate about a policy review was exempt because they were friends. Under the rules, what matters is whether the call is a marketing message to a Singapore number, and whether he checked or holds the right consent. So he now checks his list before any marketing call, including the people he knows.
There are some narrow exemptions, for example for certain messages to people you already have a relationship with. They are specific and they have conditions, so read them on the PDPC website rather than relying on a summary, and when in doubt, check the number.
Organisations check numbers through the Do Not Call Registry's own website, run by the PDPC. You set up an account, submit the numbers you want to check, and get back a result for each one showing which registers it is on. The PDPC sets out the process, the account types and any fees on that site.
A check is not permanent. People add and remove their numbers all the time, so a result is only valid for a set period. Look up the current validity period on the PDPC website and note the date of every check in your contact list. When the period runs out, you check again before the next marketing call or text.
The rules also cover how marketing messages are sent, such as identifying who the message is from. Read the PDPC's guidance on what each message must contain, and build it into your scripts and templates.
Rules that live in people's heads get forgotten on busy days. The simplest protection is a short written rule that anyone on your team, or you on a tired Friday, can follow without rereading the guidance.
Mei writes hers in plain words: before any marketing call or text to a Singapore number, check the number against the registry unless we hold clear written consent for that channel, record the check date in the contact list, and recheck when the result has expired. She adds the link to the PDPC guidance page she used and the date she read it, so she knows when to look again.
The activity below asks you to write your own version of that one-paragraph rule, citing the PDPC guidance page you based it on.
Write a one-paragraph rule for your team on when a DNC check is needed before contact, citing the PDPC guidance page you used.
Junxiong-WFG Organisation is an authorised representative of AIA Financial Advisers Private Limited (Reg. No. 201715016G).