[Demo] Deploying AI doppelgangers to de-identify user research recordings
Summary
Under biometric privacy laws like BIPA and CCPA, user research recordings containing users’ faces or voices can put your company at risk for lawsuits and fines. Legal departments are increasingly requiring more stringent redaction, and in some cases banning recording outright. This comes at a high cost for UX teams who are already being asked to do more with less, as losing access to recordings can increase duplicative research effort and reduce the accuracy of results. AI offers new solutions for UX teams who want to keep research recordings longer without violating biometric privacy laws. In this demo, we’ll show how we used off-the-shelf tools to intelligently redact users’ voices, faces, and bodies in research videos. By removing biometric identifiers, you can compliantly archive research recordings indefinitely, enabling your team to mine them for insights for years to come.
Key Insights
-
•
Biometric privacy laws increasingly restrict recording and retaining user faces and voices in UX research, risking large fines.
-
•
Replacing users with AI-generated avatars preserves the richness of user recordings while protecting privacy.
-
•
Wonder Studio can segment and animate a user's body and face with a 3D avatar fully automatically, simplifying production.
-
•
11 Labs technology enables seamless voice replacement using AI-generated speech in user research videos.
-
•
Replacing the entire body, not just the face, mitigates risks from distinctive identifying marks like tattoos and future privacy laws.
-
•
Traditional redaction methods like blurring or keeping only transcripts are either insufficient or lose valuable context.
-
•
Current AI tools have usage limits, require legal reviews, and sometimes restrictive licensing affecting enterprise use.
-
•
Hosting AI models in-house offers more data control but adds technical complexity compared to cloud-based solutions.
-
•
Using synthetic avatars raises complex ethical questions about authenticity, identity representation, and users' rights to be forgotten.
-
•
Legal risk tolerance varies, so negotiating with legal teams is essential to implement AI avatar redaction in research workflows.
Notable Quotes
"User recordings are your most valuable asset but have become riskier due to biometric privacy laws."
"Even if you’re not doing facial recognition, storing face and voice data is under growing legal scrutiny."
"Blurring user faces loses context and doesn’t address voice privacy, making it an inadequate solution."
"Wonder Studio automatically segments actors, maps their movements to a 3D model, and renders a synthetic avatar video."
"Replacing the entire body with an avatar future-proofs against unanticipated identifiers like tattoos or moles."
"DeepFakes can look too realistic and might introduce new privacy risks if donor faces come from real people."
"Processing limits and licensing terms currently restrict how much video and audio these AI tools can handle."
"Ultimately, AI avatar tools offer UX teams options to keep recordings while meeting legal compliance."
"If you can’t see a human in a video, how do you know the entire conversation wasn’t fabricated?"
"Synthetic duplicates living on after data deletion raise ethical questions about users’ right to be forgotten."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"We started to see children and teenagers as users, not just audiences."
Sofía Delsordo Kassim VeraPublic Policy for Jalisco's Designers to Make Design Matter
December 8, 2021
"It’s important not to fall in love with a feature but stay open to new information and feedback."
Product and Design at Bloomberg: A 15-year Evolution
December 6, 2022
"I want to encourage excitement about research and gradually mold people into better researchers."
Liza Pemstein Jane DavisScaling Research Via an Ops First Model at Clever
March 27, 2023
"High-level leadership changes in government often result in shifts in organizational moods and priorities."
Kara KaneTheme One Intro
November 16, 2022
"Current AI tools help summarize and sift large volumes of feedback into meaningful patterns."
Mark Interrante Harry MaxAI for Prioritization (3rd of 3 seminars)
July 11, 2024
"The four Cs—consistency, convenience, confidence, and customizability—are not just good for accessibility, they make a great experience for everyone."
Sam ProulxOnline Shopping: Designing an Accessible Experience
October 3, 2023
"If you really want to make things happen, you need to be in the room where it happens."
Rich MironovHow Can Product Managers and UXers Help Each Other (and Why are Product Folks so Annoying Sometimes)?
December 6, 2022
"If you get eight people who give a crap together, you can start a federal agency."
Juhan SoninDesign Now! The Agenda for Action
September 4, 2025
"Many ride sharing apps didn’t launch SOS features until after widespread reports of harassment, even though the problem was longstanding."
Mansi GuptaDrawing from Feminist Practice to Make Inclusive Design Operational
September 9, 2022
