HAND: THE UNIVERSAL TALENT IDENTIFIER
Building the Talent Identity Infrastructure for Public Benefit
HAND (Human & Digital) has launched a non-profit trade association — HAND: The Universal Talent Identifier — to govern the first global standard for identifying public figure talent across entertainment, sports, media, and AI.
We’re calling on studios, agencies, rightsholders, platforms, and technologists to register interest in shaping and adopting the HAND Talent ID — a persistent, ISO-level identifier for:
✅ Real people (actors, athletes, artists)
✅ Digital replicas (AI-generated likenesses, 3D avatars)
✅ Fictional characters (from games, film, literature)
WHY IT MATTERS
✔️ Track rights, royalties, and licensing
✔️ Verify authenticity and provenance
✔️ Protect talent in the age of AI and deepfakes
✔️ Support interoperability across platforms and systems
Already used by industry leaders like Sony Pictures, AFI, and Fabric Data, HAND IDs are freely-resolvable and built to scale — over 120,000 identifiers live, sourced from a pool of 4.4 million+ records.
HELP SET THE STANDARD
Join other charter members and partners shaping the foundation for ethical and efficient use of talent identities across the cultural industries.
👉 Whether you're a talent agency, production company, label, platform, game studio, or data partner — we want to hear from you.
REGISTER YOUR INTEREST
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