Calling rules

What Smitline is for

Calls you would make yourself, about your own business:

• booking, moving or cancelling an appointment;
• asking a business a question, or checking hours or availability;
• following up on an order, a bill or a repair;
• calling someone who expects to hear from you, such as your own phone for a rehearsal.

What it isn’t for

• Selling, marketing, fundraising, political calls, surveys, or collecting debts.
• Calling lists of numbers, or many people with the same message.
• Calling anyone who has asked not to be called, or calling someone over and over.
• Pretending Smitline is a person, or pretending to be someone you aren’t.
• Scams, threats, or anything illegal.
• Emergencies. Smitline can’t call 911, 988 or other emergency numbers. Call them yourself.

The full list is in section 6 of the Terms.

Who you may call

Smitline speaks with an AI voice. In the United States, the law treats an AI voice like a prerecorded one. Calling someone’s mobile phone or home line with it can need that person’s consent first, except in an emergency.

• Calling a business about your own errand is what Smitline is built for.
• Calling a person on their own phone: make sure they’ve agreed to hear from you, or would clearly expect your call.
• In Canada, the CRTC’s rules on automated calls apply, and telemarketing with them needs express consent. Smitline doesn’t allow telemarketing at all.

You are the caller, so getting consent is your job. Smitline can’t do it for you.

What Smitline does on every call

• Says whom it is calling for and why.
• Tells the person it is your AI assistant, answers honestly if asked, and never claims to be a person.
• Calls only between 8 am and 9 pm in the other person’s time zone, unless you change your calling hours.
• Won’t call emergency, crisis or premium-rate numbers, or numbers outside the US and Canada.
• Stops after 5 calls to the same number in a day.
• Leaves a short voicemail that says who it’s calling for and that it’s an AI. It never shares private details in a voicemail.
• Adds the number to your do-not-call list when someone asks not to be called again.

These checks help, but they don’t make a call lawful on their own. Change your calling hours only for people who have agreed to hear from you at other times.

Recording and transcription

• Smitline transcribes every call and meeting, so it can report back to you.
• It records a call’s audio only when you ask for a recording, and it says so at the start of the call.
• Meeting audio is never recorded.

Some places require everyone in a conversation to agree to recording, for example California, Florida and Pennsylvania. Only ask for a recording when that’s covered. If someone on the call says no, let it go.

Meetings

• Send Smitline only to meetings you’re invited to, where you may bring an assistant.
• Tell the host. It’s good manners, and some hosts or companies don’t allow note-taking bots.
• Smitline joins as “Smitline” and introduces itself as your AI assistant when it joins.

When someone says stop

If someone asks Smitline not to call again, their number goes on your do-not-call list. Leave it there, and don’t contact them another way to get around it. Anyone can also ask us at [email protected] to block their number from every Smitline account.

If the rules are broken

We may stop a call, block numbers, or suspend an account, straight away when people are at risk. When we investigate a complaint, we may review the calls involved. You are responsible for your calls, including any claims from the people you called (Terms, section 15).

Questions

Not sure whether a call is okay? Ask us first at [email protected].