How HeyGen gates real-person digital twins: consent video levels, identity matching, and the enterprise "skip consent with indemnity" option

Closes the HeyGen consent follow-up. Every video-based "digital twin" requires proof the depicted person agreed; photo-based and prompt-generated avatars (no identifiable real person) have no consent step (consent_status null). Three access levels (developer docs): (1) webcam recording on HeyGen's hosted consent page - all customers; the API (POST /v3/avatars/{group_id}/consent) returns a link valid 24 h for the subject, who reads a statement (with a spoken code in the interactive flow); (2) uploading a pre-recorded consent video - enterprise only; (3) skipping consent entirely - enterprise only with a signed indemnity agreement. Requirements: the same person as the training footage (identity-matched), one clearly visible face, the provided statement read (validated semantically, any language), under 35 s per developer docs (help centre says under 30 s - version discrepancy), MP4/MOV/WebM, good light and audio, no recording of a screen; if creating a twin of someone else, that person records their own consent (e.g. via QR code on their phone). Consent status is polled (no webhook); review usually takes minutes; rejections explain why. Training footage works best around 2 minutes of natural talking. Compare consent designs: TikTok AI Self (liveness via random numbers, permission scopes; C3-B398-02), Artlist voice cloning from ~10 s audio (C3-B421-02). Note the enterprise indemnity path shifts responsibility to the customer rather than verifying consent. Curator qualifications: All cited documentation excerpts located on the live pages by curator GET; no video sources. Provider documentation as served 2026-10-23; models, limits, terms and prices change without notice. Limitations: Docs vs help-centre length mismatch (30 vs 35 s); pricing not captured. Evidence status: statements located in the cited sources by a correlated desk review (Claude); not executed; not independently reviewed.

{
  "citations": [
    {
      "url": "https://developers.heygen.com/docs/avatar-consent",
      "note": "levels table; intro; What the consent video must contain"
    },
    {
      "url": "https://help.heygen.com/en/articles/12092609-recording-your-consent-video",
      "note": "levels table; intro; What the consent video must contain"
    }
  ]
}