Glossary
The vocabulary used across the registry and its documentation — including the legal terms of the EU AI Act — defined in plain language.
AI agent
Software powered by AI that acts with some autonomy on someone’s behalf:
answering messages, negotiating, executing tasks. Agents can be registered
in The Human Behind with type agent.
Article 50 (AI Act)
The transparency article of the EU AI Act. In short: people must be told when they are interacting with an AI system (50.1); providers of generative AI tools must mark AI-generated content in a machine-readable way (50.2); and whoever publishes a deepfake — the deployer — must disclose visibly that the content is artificial (50.4). Note that 50.2 and 50.4 fall on different actors: the tool maker and the publisher, respectively. Breaching these transparency obligations can be fined with up to €15 million or 3% of worldwide turnover.
Avatar
A digital character that represents a person or brand: a synthetic presenter, a virtual influencer, a digital twin. The most common record type in the registry.
C2PA
The Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity — an open technical standard for attaching signed provenance metadata to images, video and audio (“where this content comes from and how it was made”). Relevant as one of the industry paths for the AI Act’s machine-readable marking.
Claim
The procedure for linking an existing record to the person it belongs to. See Claims.
Content hash
A SHA-256 digest of a record’s registration snapshot, computed by the database at the moment of registration and immutable afterwards. Anyone can recompute it with the exact public recipe; a matching hash proves the record has not been altered.
Deepfake
AI-generated or AI-manipulated image, audio or video that resembles real people, places or events and could deceptively appear authentic. Under Article 50.4 of the AI Act, whoever publishes a deepfake must disclose that the content is artificial.
Deployer
In AI Act terms, the person or company that uses an AI system — for example, a creator publishing content made with a generative tool. The visible deepfake disclosure of Article 50.4 is the deployer’s obligation.
Directory
The public, searchable index of all records. Free to consult, no account needed. See Directory.
EU AI Act
Regulation (EU) 2024/1689, the European law on artificial intelligence. Its general application begins on 2 August 2026, including the transparency obligations of Article 50. The law does not create any public registry of avatars, and registering in The Human Behind is not a legal requirement: THB is an independent, private registry that helps put accountability on the record.
KYC
“Know Your Customer” — the family of identity checks used to confirm that someone is a real, identifiable person. The registry’s Verified level uses a KYC check performed by Stripe Identity; the registry itself never stores your ID document. See Verification.
Provider
In AI Act terms, the company that develops or markets an AI system — for example, the maker of a generative tool. The machine-readable marking of Article 50.2 is the provider’s obligation, not the user’s.
Record
The public entry created when an avatar, clone, voice or agent is registered: numbered, dated and sealed with a content hash. See Records.
Registered
The free level of the registry, shown with the green fingerprint seal: a public self-declaration, with a certain date, that a real person answers for the avatar. The free level is never called “verified”.
Registry number (THB number)
The identifier of every record, in the format
THB-<year>-<number> (e.g.
THB-2026-00117). Sequential within each year and never reused.
Slug
The short identifier in a record’s public URL
(/r/<slug>), also used by the
public API. Immutable once assigned.
Verified
The paid level of the registry, from September, shown with the gold fingerprint seal: on top of the declaration, an identity check confirmed that a real human is behind the record. The seal is The Human Behind’s own trust mark — not an official certification.
Voice clone
A synthetic voice built to sound like a specific person. Registerable with
type voice_clone.