Australian Spam Act Compliance in GoHighLevel Email and SMS Workflows

The short answer

Australian commercial email and SMS workflows should send only with the organization’s approved consent basis, identify the sender accurately, include a functional unsubscribe, process withdrawal promptly, and prevent suppressed contacts from returning through imports or integrations. Inferred consent is context-specific and should never become a permanent catch-all tag.

Rules the workflow must represent

Translate the organization’s approved legal position into explicit system behavior.

• Determine whether the message is a commercial electronic message.
• Record express consent or the facts supporting any approved inferred consent.
• Identify the business and provide accurate contact information.
• Include a clear, functional, low-friction unsubscribe.
• Honor withdrawal within the applicable period and suppress every connected sender.
• Do not use or supply address-harvesting lists.

Consent ledger

Store channel, status, source, timestamp, disclosure or form version, purpose or list, proof reference, and withdrawal event. Do not overwrite history with one ambiguous yes/no field.

Enrollment gate

Before every communication program, evaluate identity, recipient location where relevant, channel, purpose, relationship, permission, suppression, frequency, and any special category. A tag added by a user is not sufficient proof.

Message controls

Use accurate sender identity, truthful content, required information, an effective withdrawal path, and frequency consistent with the permission and context. The burden is on the sender to justify its program. A third-party list or platform field does not replace evidence that the specific outreach is permitted.

Reply and withdrawal handling

Process automated keywords where relevant but also recognize plain-language withdrawal. Suppress promptly across connected systems and preserve evidence of the request and completion.

Data-subject and customer requests

Create an owned procedure to locate records, verify identity, export, correct, restrict, or delete where required, including connected systems and retained backups. Do not let a marketing user improvise the response.

Audit and monitoring

Sample messages and enrollment evidence, reconcile suppression across systems, monitor complaints and delivery, inspect manual imports, and retain approval and change history. Pause any segment whose evidence cannot be established.

When to obtain legal review

Seek local counsel for bought or old data, inferred permission, sensitive information, automated decision-making, cross-border transfers, minors, regulated services, ambiguous relationship exemptions, or materially changed purposes.