ProductCompliance & trust

No lawful basis, no message.

Before a prospect is enrolled, and again before every send, PEMAX checks the address: a recorded ground with evidence under the Dutch Telecommunicatiewet art. 11.7, an allowed country, your sender identity and postal address, a working unsubscribe, the GDPR art. 14 notice in the prospect's language and a passing SPF, DKIM and DMARC check. One failed check blocks the send.

Book a demoHow it works

PEMAX enforces these rules in the product. You stay the controller of your prospect data and decide which ground applies; this page is not legal advice.

Send gate · Emma Lindqvist
  • Lawful basis on this address
  • Recipient country allowed
  • First-contact notice
  • Sender identity and postal address
  • One-click unsubscribe
  • Suppression and duplicates
  • Mailbox health
  • Inside business hours
Allowed to sendone failed check blocks the send

How it works

One rule, checked twice, with the evidence on file.

The same rule runs in the database when a prospect is enrolled and in the send queue right before a message leaves. Whatever path a prospect took into PEMAX, it meets the same gate.

  • At enrol

    Blocked prospects never join the sequence.

    The enrol dialog lists every blocked prospect with its reasons and will not select them. The result counts what was enrolled, skipped and blocked.

  • At send

    A failure is visible, never a silent skip.

    An address-level reason fails the step with its reason, an audit row and an alert. A DNS or mailbox problem defers the step by 15 minutes instead, so fixing a record never costs a step.

Lawful basis per address

A ground for each address, with evidence that fits it.

Four grounds, each with its own evidence fields. One check in the database validates every write, from the drawer, a bulk action, a CSV column, the API or an Apollo import, and answers with one readable message listing what is missing.
  • Dates must be real dates, not in the future; web addresses must be web addresses.
  • A recipient outside the EEA must name a country that really lies outside it.
  • Editing or clearing a recorded ground needs an admin; the audit keeps the old evidence.
  • An existing ground is never overwritten by an import.
Prospect · Emma Lindqvist
ELEmma LindqvistHead of Operations · Kanaal Koeltransport BV · NL
Lawful basis ConsentTw 11.7 lid 1all 4 fields present
Who consented
Emma Lindqvist, Head of Operations
When
2026-11-04
What they agreed to receive
Email about Brightwater route planning
How it was captured
Verbally, on call 7f3a… (recorded)
Recorded by Sanne de Wit · source: call consent · 4 Nov 2026

Evidence retention

Kept until 24 months after the last contact, then cleared. The ground stays with a note.

Legal hold

Admins only, with a reason. Keeps evidence and call content up to five years.

Editing or clearing a recorded ground needs an admin. The audit log keeps the evidence it replaced.

Consent on a call

When a prospect says yes on the phone, two clicks.

The one lawful path to cold email that a rep controls is consent captured by a person. PEMAX makes it the shortest path in the product: click one opens the sheet in the call's wrap-up with the scope filled in, click two records it and, if you pick a sequence, enrols right there.
  • Only from an answered, ended call to this prospect, by the caller or a market admin, within 24 hours.
  • The evidence names who consented, when, what for and how; the rep is stored separately.
  • In person and in writing are recorded from the prospect drawer the same way.
Wrap-up · Daan Kuipers

Click 1

Daan said yes to email on the call. No ground was recorded before, so his first email is blocked today.

Email consent given on this call?Yes, record itNo
  • This prospect's call, answered and ended
  • By the caller, within 24 hours

Click 2

Scopepre-filled

Email about Brightwater route planning

Howfrom the call

Verbally, on call 7f3a… (recorded)

Enrol inoptional

Logistics NL · intro, 2 steps

Record consent and enrol

The gate judges again before enrolling. The first email carries the art. 14 notice.

GDPR art. 14 notice

The first email tells them where their data came from.

When you did not get someone's details from them directly, they have a right to know. PEMAX stamps your first-contact notice onto the first email to each prospect, above the footer, in the prospect's language, and gives the rep a spoken version for the first call.
  • Default texts in Dutch and English, with placeholders for the source, your privacy page, your privacy contact and your company.
  • Language follows the prospect, then the market, then English.
  • A placeholder without a value blocks the first email and names the missing field.
Compliance · First-contact notice

Notice text · Dutch · default

Wij verwerken uw naam, functie en zakelijke contactgegevens, afkomstig van {{data_source}}, op basis van ons gerechtvaardigd belang. Bezwaar maken of meer weten? {{privacy_url}} of mail {{privacy_email}}.

data_source privacy_url privacy_email company

First email to Mila Visser · rendered

Goedemiddag mevrouw Visser, …

Wij verwerken uw naam, functie en zakelijke contactgegevens, afkomstig van Apollo.io, op basis van ons gerechtvaardigd belang. Bezwaar maken of meer weten? brightwater.example/privacy of mail privacy@brightwater.example.

Brightwater Outbound · Postbus 1234, Rotterdam · Afmelden

Spoken first-call line · shown at the top of the script

“Uw gegevens heb ik via Apollo.io, op basis van ons gerechtvaardigd belang; wilt u niet meer gebeld worden, dan noteer ik dat direct.”

A placeholder without a value blocks the first email and names the missing field.

Retention

Nothing recorded lives forever by accident.

Each kind of data PEMAX records has a window, set per workspace. One sweep per workspace runs every night, respects legal hold, never touches another workspace and writes one audit row with what it removed.
  • Shorten any window freely; lengthen it up to 24 months. Longer is a platform staff action.
  • A transcript that was deleted is never made again from the recording.
  • The privacy notice for your team is generated from the settings in force.
Data & privacy · Retention
Call transcripts and AI call summaries90 daysdefault 90 days7 to 730
AI triage results180 daysdefault 180 days90 to 730
Who did what (per-person attribution)180 daysdefault 365 days90 to 730
Warmup email texts30 daysdefault 30 days7 to 730
Webhook payloads14 daysdefault 30 days7 to 730

Lawful basis evidence

24 months after the last contact · 1 to 60 months

Last sweep · today 04:15 UTC

12 transcripts, 31 webhook payloads removed. Legal hold respected.

Shorten freely. Longer than 730 days only by platform staff, recorded as such.

Everything else the gate knows

The small rules that keep the big promise.

  • Country allow-list

    Out of the box only the Netherlands is allowed and an unknown country is blocked. The country comes from the prospect, else the email domain. Add a country after you have checked its rules.

  • DNS gate per domain

    SPF healthy, DKIM found and DMARC present on the mailbox's domain, or nothing is sent. Settings shows the exact records for Google Workspace and others, with your own DKIM selectors and a re-check button.

  • Identity and a working unsubscribe

    Every email carries your sender identity, your postal address and a one-click unsubscribe (RFC 8058 header and a footer link). If any of the three is missing, the gate blocks the send.

  • Statutory rules stay on

    A workspace cannot switch off “no ground, no message”. Rules that come from the law can only be relaxed by platform staff, and that change is audited.

  • Replies are conversations

    When a prospect has written to you on that channel, a real message and not an auto-reply or bounce, answering them is not an unsolicited approach. Identity and opt-out still apply.

  • Calls follow calling rules

    A call is not an electronic message, so a call-only cadence needs no ground. Do not call goes to the suppression list at once and is checked again at dial time.

  • Recording by destination

    Netherlands: announced on every call, and an objection stops and deletes the recording. Germany, Switzerland, Austria and any unlisted country: no recording until the rep records a yes.

  • Transcription behind a DPA

    For client workspaces, no call audio leaves for transcription until the transcription provider's data processing agreement is confirmed. Settings shows the state.

  • AI, labelled and limited

    AI-drafted emails carry a machine-readable marking that survives human edits, and wait for review by default. PEMAX never infers emotion from a voice.

Details

The four grounds, and what each one needs.

These are the grounds PEMAX accepts for an electronic message under Tw 11.7, with the evidence the database requires before it records one.

  • ConsentTw 11.7 lid 1

    • Who consented (name and role)
    • When (a date, not in the future)
    • What they agreed to receive
    • How it was captured: form, a recorded call, in person, in writing

  • Designated addressTw 11.7 lid 3 sub a

    • Where it is published (a web address)
    • The date you captured the page
    • The exact text that marks the address for commercial messages
    • Optional: an archive or screenshot reference

    Being findable, on a website or in Apollo, is not enough.

  • Existing customerTw 11.7 lid 4

    • The earlier sale (order or invoice reference)
    • The sale date
    • How the opt-out was offered when the address was collected

  • Recipient outside the EEATw 11.7 lid 3 sub b

    • The country, which must lie outside the EEA
    • The local rule you checked

    The country still has to be on your allow-list.

Retention windows and their limits.

Defaults as shipped. A workspace admin may set any value from the floor up to 730 days. Platform staff may keep data longer, up to five years, and that is recorded as a staff setting a workspace can always shorten.

Call recordings keep their own per-market setting, also capped at 730 days for a workspace. Audit rows: 365 days for activity, 730 days for security events.

  • Call transcripts and AI call summaries

    Default
    90 days
    Range
    7 to 730 days
    Legal hold
    Yes

  • AI triage results (reply labels, corrections, suggested actions)

    Default
    180 days
    Range
    90 to 730 days
    Legal hold
    Yes

  • Who did what (per-person attribution)

    Default
    365 days
    Range
    90 to 730 days
    Legal hold
    Yes

  • Warmup email texts

    Default
    30 days
    Range
    7 to 730 days
    Legal hold
    No

  • Webhook payloads (CRM hand-offs, inbound events)

    Default
    30 days
    Range
    7 to 730 days
    Legal hold
    No

  • Lawful basis evidence (after the last contact)

    Default
    24 months
    Range
    1 to 60 months
    Legal hold
    Up to 5 years

What PEMAX does not decide for you

PEMAX checks that a ground is recorded and that its evidence has the right shape; it cannot check that the evidence is true. The default notice texts, the country list and the retention windows reflect Mape Media's reading of the Dutch rules for phase 1. Where your situation differs, change them after your own check: you remain the controller of your prospect data.

FAQ

Questions we get

Does PEMAX make our cold outreach lawful?
No tool can. PEMAX enforces the rules it can check: a ground per address, evidence in the right shape, an allowed country, identity, an unsubscribe and the first-contact notice. It cannot know whether your evidence is true. You remain the controller of your prospect data and responsible for the ground you record.
Which countries can we email?
By default, the Netherlands only. The rules for unsolicited email differ per country, so a country is added by a workspace admin after a dated check of its rules. A recipient outside the EEA still needs that ground recorded and the country on the list.
Can we import people without a lawful basis?
Yes. They land ready to call, because calling has its own rules. Email stays blocked for each of them until a ground with evidence is recorded, by hand, in bulk with evidence, through a CSV column, or by consent captured on a call.
What happens to a queued email when a ground is removed?
The send queue checks again right before the email leaves. The step fails with the reason “no lawful basis”, visible on the queue row, with an audit entry and an alert. Nothing is skipped silently.
Can our admin switch the checks off?
Not the statutory ones. Admins configure what is a reading rather than the law itself: the notice texts, role addresses, the countries, and the retention windows within their limits. Relaxing a rule that comes from the law is a platform staff action and is audited.
How long is evidence kept?
By default 24 months after the last contact, outside active outreach; a workspace can set 1 to 60 months. Then the evidence is cleared, the ground stays with a note, and the gate stops treating it as valid. A prospect on legal hold keeps it up to five years.
Is a recorded call analysed for tone or emotion?
No. Only the words in a transcript are ever analysed. A guard test fails the build if any code asks the transcription provider for sentiment or emotion from audio. More on how AI is used on the security page.

One workspace

Works with the rest of PEMAX

Bring your hardest compliance question.

We walk through the gate on a real workspace: a prospect without a ground, consent on a call, the first email with its notice, and what the audit log keeps. Then we tell you honestly where your own check is still needed.

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