CODE OF CONDUCT FOR PROVIDING CORPORATE MESSAGING BY ALIAS IN SMS/MMS FOR SENDER IDENTIFICATION (CLI) AS AN ALTERNATIVE TO TELEPHONE NUMBERING
1. OBJECT AND PURPOSE
The present document constitutes the CODE OF CONDUCT of Carrier Italia s.r.l. (VAT 10231271007), with registered office in Rome – 00118, Via Anagnina n. 584 (hereinafter also “Carrier”) for the provision of the SMS sending service with personalized sender (“Alias”)drawn up pursuant to art. 5, paragraph 4, of Resolution no. 42/13/CIR, as amended by Resolution no. 131/14/CIR of 10 December 2014, and in accordance with Resolution 306/20/CIR of 16 September 2020, published on 29 September 2020 (hereinafter “Code of Conduct” or “Code”). The Code of Conduct aims to regulate the establishment, assignment and use of aliases in the context of corporate messaging services and to define the rules for the protection of the users of these services.
This Code is published on Carrier’s website a: www.smooos.com.
2. DEFINITIONS
For the purposes of this Code, in accordance with Resolution No. 42/13/CIR, we define:
a) AGCom: Authority for Guarantees in Communications that supervises compliance with the aforementioned resolution and that manages the data base containing the details of the Alias object of use;
b) Customer/Company: the natural or legal person who uses or requests to use a company messaging service, by subscribing to an offer from a company messaging service provider;
c) Final customer means any natural or legal person who uses or requests the use of a publicly available electronic communications service for purposes other than work, commercial or professional activities;
d) Corporate messaging: SMS/MMS communications, in single or massive mode, to End Customers by a Customer/Company or Entity, for social, informative and advertising purposes;
e) Provider of the company messaging service: legal entity authorized pursuant to art. 25 of the CCE, which provides, on the basis of specific contracts with Customers/Companies, the company messaging service through the use of Aliases to Final Customers (cf. art. 4 paragraph 1);
f) Provider of access services: legal entity authorised pursuant to art. 25 of the CCE providing mobile services, including messaging, to the Final Customer;
g) CLI – Calling line identification: identification of the calling line by the number defined by the UIT-T Recommendation E.164 and at national level by the National Numbering Plan (Del. 52/12/CIR and s.m.i.) associated to the same line;
h) Alias: Alphanumeric character string transmitted in the intended sender/CLI field in SMS/MMS communications not longer than 11 characters.
3. ESTABLISHMENT AND ASSIGNMENT OF AN ALIAS
Aliases consist of a set of alphanumeric strings not longer than 11 characters.
The use of an Alias is subject to the Customer/Company communicating to Carrier the information required by AGCom for the estimate upload to the system.
The use of Aliases is allowed to the Customer/ Company who has subscribed a corporate messaging offer with the Supplier of the same and has obtained in use one or more numbering E.164 of the PNN to be associated with the Alias, in accordance with the provisions of Resolution no. 42/13/CIR.
The use of Aliases already used for other Customers/Companies must be avoided.
A number given to the Customer/Company may be associated with more Alias provided that they are used by the same user.
In accordance with art. 4 of Resolution 42/13/CIR, the Alias is formed in order to facilitate the identification by the recipient of the subject responsible for the content of the communication or the good or service offered by the aforementioned, reducing, therefore, the possibility of inducing to misidentification; therefore, it is constituted in such a way as to be distinctive of the Customer/ Company, not detrimental to the rights of others and not misleading for the recipient.
By way of example and not exhaustive, the use of:
– simple personal names (e.g. “Giorgia”);
– simple surnames or names and surnames which do not correspond to the company name and which, in any case, do not identify the profession practised, but which may be identified by titles or acronyms (e.g. “Ing”, “Avv.”, Dott.”);
– generic or commonly used names (e.g. “event”, “mother”, “pharmacy”);
– simple names of cities lacking, however, further indications (e.g. “Catania” to mean the Municipality of Catania);
– names of public offices not accompanied or replaced by an indication of the body/administration to which they belong (e.g. “Demographic services”, without the further necessary indication of the common sender of the Alias);
– purely informative content (e.g. “Greetings”).
The Aliases that mutualize public Entities and Institutions are reserved exclusively to the same Entities or Institutions and it is not possible to associate them with other subjects.
The Alias cannot be composed of only numeric characters.
Aliases are assigned on the basis of the current rules on trademarks. The Corporate Messaging Service Provider will take the utmost care in order to prevent persons who do not hold rights to a particular Alias from using it when the legitimate use is up to third parties under trademark law. In this regard, the Corporate Messaging Service Provider will adopt authentication procedures of the Customer/Company through credentials in order to ensure that these, who has subscribed to an offer of corporate messaging services is actually the subject who accesses the system of sending messages and uses Aliases. To this end, the Provider of corporate messaging services could provide for the insertion in the contracts stipulated with the Customers/ Company of special clauses under which they will assume responsibility for the use of only Aliases of which order legitimately, and may also have the Customer/Company sign a specific self-declaration in this regard. The Customer/Company who has unlawfully used the Alias will be prevented from using the same.
4. MANAGEMENT OF AN ALIAS
The Aliases associated with the Customer/Company by the Provider of corporate messaging services are contained in the database managed by agcom, limited to the services directly provided by it, bearing for each Alias:
– Alias;
– the associated number E.164,
– the name of the Customer/Company to whom the use of the Alias is granted;
– the relevant Tax Code;
– the relevant VAT number;
– the Pec address of the Customer/Company;
– how to contact this person, and only those actually available, and in particular: address, telephone number (if any), and in order of preference of customer service, fax, email, PEC, website address (where applicable), date on which the Alias is given for use to customers, date of termination of the Alias, when no longer in use.
The list is accessible – on request – to the Authority’s Offices.
The above information is kept up to date for new activations before the start of employment of a new Alias and within the following 24 working hours in the event of termination.
The information is uploaded through the communication of the Aliases that the Provider of corporate messaging services intends to use to its own Customer/ Company or the Aliases that your Customer/ Company no longer intends to use through the Supplier himself.
The Alias system only allows you to add records, and more specifically: these can be of two types, that is “addition” of an Alias or “removal” of an Alias. As a result, the Alias system database keeps the history of all operations performed. If you want to communicate a variation of the data entered and related to an alias, you must enter two records in the Alias system: the first, type “removal”, and the second, type “addition”. Both records can be contained in the same file, making sure that the removal record precedes the addition record.
Please also note that the name of the Corporate Messaging Service Provider, similarly to the date and time of receipt of the record by the Alias system, are not sent but are automatically detected by the system itself.
Pursuant to Resolution No. 306/20/CIR, the identity of its Customers/Companies who have requested the use of aliases to send messages is verified and that the data provided by them are correct. Aliases are deleted in case of uncertain identity or if there is an anomaly in the data of the Customer/ Company; it is verified that the Alias comply with the provisions of Resolution no. 42/13/CIR and s.m.i.; the Aliases registered in the event of a discrepancy in the registration with the current regulations are deleted; the operation of the Customer’s company Pec that requires the registration of new Aliases is acquired and verified, included among the data to be provided in the single Alias register established by the Authority, in accordance with the specifications provided by the Authority’s Directorate Network and Electronic Communications Services.
The verification of the actual heading of the Pec to the Customer/ Company can be carried out, by way of example, using the websites www.inipec.gov.it or https://indicepa.gov.it/documentale for customers of the Public Administration. The operativity can be verified by exchange between Pec or accepting the Contract through Pec.
5. TERMINATION OF THE USE OF ALIASES BY THE CUSTOMER/COMPANY
A given Alias will remain active until the contract between the Corporate Messaging Service Provider and the Customer/Company is in effect, except where, under contract, is the Customer/Company to inform the Supplier that they no longer want to use a particular Alias. Within 24 hours of the termination of the contract between the Corporate Messaging Provider and the Customer/Company, or the receipt by the Supplier of the communication of no longer wanting to use a particular Alias, the Supplier will communicate the cessation of the use of the Alias to its System.
6. PROTECTION OF THE FINAL CUSTOMER
The Final Customer who has received an SMS/MMS message with as sender an alias considered unexpected, misleading or spam, can contact the Customer Care of its mobile phone operator by reporting the case and communicating to the operator the following necessary information in order to allow the required checks:
– numbering of the final customer;
– Alias appearing in the sender of the message;
– the date, date and time of receipt of the message.
Customer Care receives information about the Customer/Company that sent the message and communicates it to the End Customer through a specific query to AGCom’s data base. The Customer Care reserves the right to communicate to the Final Customer the results of further verifications that may be necessary for the handling of the complaint.
In the event of a request from the competent Authorities for the tracking data of the message sent, the Provider of corporate messaging services will deliver such data as soon as possible in order to ensure the purposes of justice.
7. SUBSEQUENT VERSIONS OF THE CODE
Carrier, as a company messaging Provider, reserves the right, always in compliance with the legislation on Alias, the right to prepare in the future new and more advanced versions of this Code in order to meet the business needs of industry players and in order to protect the rights of end users, in conjunction with the evolution of corporate messaging services containing Alias and related discipline, currently still in the experimental phase.
CARRIER ITALIA S.R.L.
Registered Legal Office:
Via Anagnina n. 584
00118 Roma – Italia
The above Code of Conduct is updated to 01/06/2022.
