SMS Verify API

The SMS Verify API delivers phone-based verification and two-factor authentication using a limited duration, one-time passcode sent over SMS.

You can either generate the verification code yourself or have TeleSign generate it for you. You can also optionally screen verification SMS recipients by risk score or SIM swap risk indicator. You also have the option to configure your verification codes to expire after a set duration of time or after a max number of attempts by an end user.

Common Use Cases:

• Two Factor Authentication (2FA) - Prompt a user, after entering their password, to enter a verification code you send to their phone number to complete a log-in process.
• Password Reset - Ask a user to enter a verification code you send to their phone number; if they enter it correctly, allow that user to reset their password.
• Login Verification - Make sure a user is not entering a fake phone number, by sending a verification code to their phone and asking them to enter it in.
• Payment Verification - Verify a payment with Strong Customer Authentication (SCA), as part of compliance with the European Union’s Revised Payment Services Directive (PSD2). This use case is relevant to fintechs, open banking solutions, payment service providers (PSP), and e-commerce platforms.

General Requirements

• Base URL: rest-ww.telesign.com
• Protocols: https
• Authentication: Basic (easiest to implement) or Digest
• Encoding: Accepts only UTF-8 unicode characters as inputs.
• Accepts: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
• Responds With: application/json
• Required Headers: Content-Type - application/x-www-form-urlencoded

Documentation by Category

• Reference: Go here if you are familiar with the API at a high-level, and want to look up technical specs for the API and each of its actions.
  • POST /v1/verify/sms - Use this action to send an SMS with a verification code to a recipient phone number.
  • GET /v1/verify/{reference_id} - Use this action to get the delivery status and other info for a verification transaction you have created.
  • PUT /v1/verify/completion/{referenceid} - Use this action to notify TeleSign that you have completed verification for an end-user.
  • SMPP TLVs for SMS Verify - Lists and describes inputs for our SMPP service that are specific to SMS Verify. For a full explanation of using SMPP with TeleSign, first read SMPP Protocol.
• How-to Guides: Go here if you are familiar with basic usage of the API, and want instructions to carry out one specific task with it.
  • Verify By SMS With Your Own Code
  • Verify By SMS With TeleSign Code
  • Implement PSD2 Compliance for Payments
  • Screen SMS Verify Recipients by Risk Score
  • Screen SMS Verify Recipients by SIM Swap Indicator
• Explanations: Go here to clarify or expand your understanding of a particular topic related to this API. These pages might help you make an implementation or usage decision, or simply deepen your knowledge.
  • Which Method Should I Use to Get Delivery Status?

Other Resources

• Try It - Use a widget to make some test requests without writing any code.
• Compliance - Learn SMS compliance best practices from these articles in our Support Center.