Likeness detection helps creators find content on YouTube where their face appears to be altered or generated by AI. If any relevant content is found, creators can review and decide what to do, including requesting removal through the privacy complaint process. Likeness detection helps creators control their likeness, safeguard their identity, and protect their viewers.
Eligibility & requirements
Likeness detection is currently an experimental feature and isn’t available in some countries. Creators must also meet the following criteria:
- Age: Must be over 18 years old to set up Likeness detection.
- Channel permissions: Must be a Channel Owner or Manager to set up Likeness detection. Learn more about channel permissions.
- Channel Owners, Managers, Editors, and Editors (limited) can review matches and report privacy violations on behalf of any Channel Owner or Manager on the channel who has set up Likeness detection.
- Verification: Must complete a verification process by providing a government-issued ID and taking a brief video of your face (selfie video). The selfie video is also used as a reference to enable the system to detect videos with your likeness.
How Likeness detection works
YouTube reviews content using automated systems for many reasons, including ad suitability and copyright checks, in accordance with our Community Guidelines. For Likeness detection, our system performs a one-time search of newly uploaded videos, to identify videos that potentially contain the face of each creator who has set up Likeness detection. This works similarly to Content ID, except the scan searches for a creator’s likeness rather than copyrighted content.
Here are a few other things to keep in mind about how Likeness detection works:
- Visual matches: Currently, the feature is only used to detect visual matches of an enrolled creators’ face. We aim to extend Likeness detection to audio in the near future.
- If you find content containing your voice that you believe may be violating our privacy policy, you can report it through the privacy complaint process.
- Non-enrolled individuals: To find matches of enrolled creators’ faces, the feature will scan and detect faces of other individuals in the content in addition to enrolled creators. However, the technology can only identify likeness for enrolled creators who have consented to using the feature and have submitted a reference of their face. Likeness detection can’t identify other individuals in videos. We immediately discard likeness detection data for faces that don’t match an enrolled creators’ face.
- Actual footage: In this experimental phase, the feature may display videos featuring the actual faces of enrolled creators, not altered or AI-generated. For example, you may see short clips of your YouTube videos uploaded by other channels. This content can’t be removed under our privacy policies, but for unauthorized uses, you can submit a copyright removal request, as long as you consider whether fair use, public domain, or a similar copyright exception applies before you submit.
Set up Likeness detection
If you’re an eligible creator, here’s how to get started with managing your facial likeness on YouTube:
- Open YouTube Studio on a computer.
- From the left menu, select Content detection
Likeness
- Agree to YouTube using biometric technology to search for your likeness on YouTube.
- To be able to search for facial likeness we’ll ask you to submit a reference of your face. To be able to search for audio likeness we'll process audio data from your content on YouTube and may ask you to submit a reference of your voice later. By agreeing, you provide your consent for us to process your data for these purposes.
- Complete the Google identity verification process.
- Provide a government-issued ID and a brief video of your face for verification. This helps us prevent fraudulent and abusive uses of likeness detection. We also use the brief video of your face and images of your face from content on YouTube to detect videos where your likeness may be altered or AI-generated. Use a clear picture of your official government-issued ID when verifying.
- Repeat the steps above for each person who appears on camera and would like to enroll.
Review matches and take action
When Likeness detection finds a potential match, you can review it and decide what action to take.
- Open YouTube Studio on a computer or mobile browser.
- From the left menu, select Content detection
- Review detected videos where your face may be altered or AI-generated.
- You can select a filter to find videos by number of views (Total views) or channels by number of subscribers (Subscribers).
- To view details, select Review next to a video.
- Review the video and choose an action to take:
- Submit a likeness removal request: Choose this option if you think the video violates our privacy policy. Continue by filling out the required information as part of the privacy complaint process. Learn how to manage privacy complaints.
- Submit a copyright removal request: Choose this option if your original copyrighted content was used without your permission and you want to submit a legal copyright removal request. Be sure to consider whether fair use, public domain, or a similar copyright exception applies before you submit.
- Move to archive: Choose this option to remove the video from your review list and keep it live on YouTube. At any time, you can go back to the Archived tab, find the video, and start the privacy complaint process.
Manage privacy complaints
If you submit a likeness removal request, we’ll email you about the outcome.
- Retractions: After you submit a likeness removal request, if you change your mind, you can retract the request. To retract a likeness removal request, follow the retraction link in the confirmation email you got from YouTube after you submitted the request. This link takes you to a brief form to complete your retraction.
- Rejected complaints: YouTube will not remove all content. We consider several factors when assessing likeness removal requests, including whether the content is parody or satire. Learn more about the criteria we use to evaluate a privacy complaint. Also, keep in mind that content can be removed from YouTube for other reasons.
Turn off Likeness detection
After you set up Likeness detection, you can opt out at any time. Once you turn off the feature, you will no longer be able to view a list of detected videos containing your likeness.
- Open YouTube Studio on a computer or mobile browser.
- From the left menu, select Content detection
- Select Manage likeness detection.
- Select Stop finding matches
Troubleshoot common issues
I’m not seeing any detected videos
Once you set up Likeness detection, you may not immediately see any detected videos. Also, if altered or synthetic content featuring your face is infrequently uploaded to YouTube, you may see a limited number of detected videos. This is normal and simply indicates that we haven’t detected unauthorized use of your visual likeness on YouTube.
If you find a video that contains AI-altered content that looks like you, but hasn't surfaced in the tool, you can report it to us through the privacy complaint process.
The feature missed an altered or AI-generated video
Likeness detection is experimental and we’re still tuning the software. If you’re an enrolled creator and you find an altered or AI-generated video with your likeness on YouTube, but it hasn’t surfaced in the tool, you can report it using the privacy complaint process. You can also send us feedback to help improve the feature during this experimental phase.
Frequently asked questions
Likeness detection automatically performs a one-time scan of newly uploaded YouTube videos to identify videos that potentially contain the face of each creator who has set up Likeness detection. To find matches of these creators’ faces, our system will scan and detect faces of other individuals who are present, including adults and children, in addition to any signed-up creators. Scans are immediately discarded afterwards, and cannot be used to identify anyone other than creators who have signed up.
We process enrolled creators’ data as described in this article on the basis of consent and we rely on legitimate interests for the other processing. You can find more information about the legitimate interests of Google and third parties, and the ways we prevent abuse and protect our users and the public, in the Google Privacy Policy.
If you set up Likeness detection, we’ll process your data for the purposes of creating templates of your likeness using:
- Your brief video provided during the identity verification process
- Content from videos you upload on YouTube, including images of your face
These will be used to detect when your likeness is being used in altered or AI-generated content on YouTube.
When you submit a likeness removal request, we’ll use your full legal name, as captured during the identity verification process, to autofill the relevant removal request form.
If the list of detected videos to review contains the likenesses of multiple people who have set up Likeness detection through your channel, your full legal name will be displayed next to videos with your face in them, which enables all authorized users of your channel to easily find and review videos of specific people.
If you submit a likeness removal request for a video detected through this feature, a screenshot from the brief video of your face taken during the verification process may be shown to the YouTube operations team that reviews these removal requests, which will enable them to easily identify you in the video.
You may also agree to allow us to use your face and voice data from your content on YouTube for improving and training our likeness detection models. You can revoke your consent for this at any time in YouTube Studio by going to Content detection Likeness
Manage likeness detection.
Data storage
Once you set up Likeness detection, a unique identifier is assigned to the brief video of your face, your full legal name, and your likeness template. This information will be stored on YouTube’s internal database for up to 3 years from the last time you signed into YouTube, unless you withdraw your consent from this feature or delete your account. You can withdraw your consent and turn off Likeness detection at any time. When you turn off Likeness detection, we’ll delete this information from our systems. Information from your government-issued ID is also stored in your Payments Profile, which you can access and delete at any time.
We do not store data of individuals who may appear in the YouTube videos we scan for potential likeness detection matches.
When you sign up for Likeness detection, you also have the option to allow YouTube to use your face and voice templates to develop and improve likeness detection models. This helps us build better, more accurate likeness detection technologies.
You can opt out of YouTube’s use of this data for development and improvement of likeness models at any time:
- Open YouTube Studio on a computer or mobile browser.
- From the left menu, select Content detection
- Select Manage likeness detection.
- Uncheck the optional checkbox.