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Before you can generate video with a digital twin (type: "digital_twin"), HeyGen needs proof that the person depicted agreed to be cloned. This protects the avatar subject, your account, and HeyGen — and it’s what lets you use a real person’s likeness responsibly at scale.
The consent API step applies only to digital twin avatars. A group created from a photo (type: "photo") or prompt (type: "prompt") has no consent request to make and reports consent_status of null. If you add a photo or prompt look to an existing group, it retains that group’s consent status.A photo avatar is still built from a real person’s image. Having no API step to complete is not permission to use someone’s likeness: make sure you have the subject’s agreement before you create one.

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The three levels of access

Consent is offered as three increasing levels of access. Each level removes friction from the flow, and each is unlocked for a progressively narrower set of accounts. Higher levels are more powerful and correspondingly more restricted. One endpoint drives both Level 1 and Level 2: POST /v3/avatars/{group_id}/consent. By default it starts the webcam flow and returns a URL for the avatar subject — the link is valid for 24 hours; enterprise accounts can pass a pre-recorded consent_video instead.

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Record via webcam (Level 1)

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Response

Enterprise accounts can submit a pre-recorded consent statement directly — same endpoint, with consent_video in place of the flow parameters:
The video is submitted immediately for review — the subject never visits a consent page, so the response contains the avatar_group alone and no url. Because there is no hosted page in this flow, send consent_video on its own, without the webcam-flow parameters. This flow is enterprise-only — please reach out to sales or your account team to request access. Because the upload flow has no hosted page prompting the subject, you provide the statement yourself. Consent is validated semantically, so minor wording differences are fine, and the statement can be in any language. Translate it however fits your subject. The current recommended statement:
“Hey there! I’m speaking with LOTS of energy, while staying natural and confident. This helps HeyGen capture my voice, my expressions, and my motion, so my avatar can behave JUST like me in ANY video!”
No passcode is required for the upload path — a spoken code applies only to the interactive webcam flow (Level 1).
Check consent_status on the avatar group via GET /v3/avatars/{group_id} to know when consent is complete. It is null for a group created from a photo or a prompt, which never requires consent. The status belongs to the group, not the individual look.
Consent is one step in the digital twin flow. To create the avatar itself, see Create Avatar; to browse the resulting characters and looks, see Avatars and Avatar Looks.