Protect your name and face: a setup guide to YouTube likeness detection, Spotify Artist Profile Protection and ISNI

Impersonation reaches artists two ways: a video with your face, or a track under your name. Two platforms now offer a tool for each. Neither works anywhere else, and neither is fully open.

On 21 Apr 2026 YouTube extended its likeness detection to talent agencies, management companies and the celebrities they represent, "regardless of whether they have a YouTube channel". Spotify has been testing Artist Profile Protection with a limited group of artists since 15 March. Here is how to set up each, what you hand over, and where an ISNI fits.

This is a practical guide, not legal advice.

What does each tool actually do?

• YouTube likeness detection scans new uploads once for faces that match yours and may be AI-altered. The help page says it works "similarly to Content ID", but for a person rather than a recording. Faces only, for now.
• Spotify Artist Profile Protection tells you when music is delivered under your name and lets you take yourself off releases that aren't yours. It is in beta and limited.
• ISNI is a public identifier for a creator's name. It blocks nothing, but gives you one reference number to quote in a dispute.

TechCrunch reports that YouTube's tool began as a 2025 creator pilot and reached politicians, officials and journalists in March 2026. Neither source names musicians, so if you have a manager or agency, ask whether they've been onboarded.

How do you set up YouTube likeness detection?

According to the help page, you need to be over 18 and a Channel Owner or Manager. The feature isn't available in some countries.

1. Open YouTube Studio on a computer.
2. In the left menu, choose Content detection, then Likeness, then Start now.
3. Agree to YouTube using biometric technology on your face. The consent text also covers processing audio from your YouTube content, and YouTube may ask for a voice reference later.
4. Complete Google identity verification: a photo of a government-issued ID and a short selfie video. The selfie also becomes the reference the scanner matches against.
5. Wait. Verification can take up to 5 days, and a confirmation email arrives when it's done.
6. Repeat for every band member on camera. A shared team Google account can fail verification on a name mismatch, so give each person their own Manager login.

Enrolment includes an optional checkbox letting YouTube use your face and voice templates to improve its models. Detection doesn't need it. We'd leave it unticked; you can withdraw later under Manage likeness detection.

What happens when YouTube finds a match?

Matches appear under Content detection > Likeness > For review, and you can sort them by views or by subscriber count. Open one with Review and choose one of three actions:

• Likeness removal request, through the privacy complaint process. YouTube emails the outcome and won't remove everything; parody and satire are weighed.
• Copyright removal request, for reused footage of yours. Real, unaltered clips of you can't be removed under the privacy rules, so this is their route.
• Move to archive. The video stays live; you can return to it from the Archived tab.

A thin list doesn't mean you're safe: YouTube says the experimental feature may miss videos. TechCrunch reported that YouTube had said in March the number of removals so far was "very small".

Voice is the gap for musicians. Detection is face-only for now. The help page says "some users" can record a speaking voice sample, with voice matches still rolling out, and says nothing about singing. Report a cloned vocal through the privacy complaint form yourself.

How do you turn on Spotify Artist Profile Protection?

Only Admins and Editors on your artist team can do this, per the support page.

1. Log in at artists.spotify.com and open the user menu from your avatar.
2. Look for Artist Profile Protection. If it isn't there, you aren't in the beta yet.
3. Turn it on. The default mode is Review releases.
4. Check new deliveries under Music > Review, which has For review and Removed tabs. A release can list you as main artist, featured artist, remixer, composer or conductor (classical), or actor.
5. Select Remove next to anything that isn't yours. You have up to 28 days after the release goes live.

Note what "Review" means: if you do nothing, the release goes live as scheduled with your name on it, as the launch post also says. A stricter Block releases mode, pitched at artists with common names or frequent mismatches and even more limited, holds releases under Music > Approvals until you approve them. It comes with an artist key for trusted distributors, so your own releases arrive pre-approved. Keep it private; Spotify can refresh it if it leaks.

Spotify also says to check the content provider name before approving, since it may not match the distributor you know, and to fix typos, wrong roles or artwork through metadata rather than removal. Removal only applies on Spotify: the release may still appear under your name elsewhere, so tell your distributor too.

Where does an ISNI fit?

ISNI is a 16-character identifier for the public identities of contributors to media, standardised as ISO 27729, according to Wikipedia's summary. The ISNI home page returned 403 Forbidden to both our tools, which looks like a bot block rather than an outage. So we could not confirm the agency's own description, fees or list of registration agencies, and rely on it for nothing.

What we could check:

• The public ISNI database does answer. Querying a well-known band returned records listing each name form with a code for the contributor that supplied it, one labelled UMG. Others add to your record, so search your own name.
• Sound Credit's ISNI page now redirects to Flowthru, which says it partners with the ISNI International Agency. Its steps are desktop only: sign up for a free account, finish onboarding, then click Claim/Create ISNI from your account menu at the top right. It says ISNI registration is included "on every plan".

Give your ISNI to your distributor and collecting society, and quote it in disputes. We found nothing in YouTube's or Spotify's documentation saying either tool reads it, so it supports your claims rather than triggering protection.

Your checklist

• Everyone on camera has their own YouTube Manager login and has enrolled, training box unticked.
• Someone checks For review weekly.
• Cloned vocals are reported by hand via the privacy complaint form.
• Artist Profile Protection is on, if your Spotify for Artists menu shows it.
• Someone checks Music > Review inside the 28-day window.
• If Block mode is offered, your distributor has your artist key.
• You have an ISNI, have checked your record, and have sent the number to your distributor.

What we think

Turn on both if you can. But look at who carries the cost.

You pay with your biometrics. YouTube gets your legal name, a government ID and a face video. It stores the selfie video, your name and a likeness template for up to three years after your last sign-in, and keeps ID details in your Payments Profile, which you can delete at any time. A clear retention limit is to its credit. But a model-training checkbox doesn't belong on a safety form; consent to protection and consent to training should be separate requests.

The order is wrong for musicians. In our view, a singer's bigger risk is a cloned voice, not a cloned face. YouTube built face matching first, and the voice feature it is adding is described as speaking voice. Our reading: creators and celebrities first, vocalists later, if at all.

Spotify's default is notice, not consent. In Review mode a fake goes live under your name and you get 28 days to take yourself off. Only the smaller Block test makes your approval a condition of release. Making artists opt out of being impersonated puts the work on the people with the least capacity for it.

Nothing carries across platforms. Each service has its own enrolment, queue and deadlines. Agencies with staff can cope; YouTube names CAA, UTA, WME and Untitled Management as partners. An indie doing it alone is where we left the artists in our piece on Sony's 260,000 deepfake takedowns. A shared identifier like ISNI is the obvious bridge. Until platforms use it to match identities, you'll defend your name one platform at a time.