Research artifact under Digital Humans

Plain Disclosure

Start with cookies. A cookie banner is disclosure of tracking before you proceed. A Digital Human is a person-shaped interface. The questions are the same: what is collected, who is speaking, when a human takes over, and whether you can refuse.

UK rules say you must tell people if you set cookies, explain what they do and why, and get consent, with an exception for cookies that are strictly necessary (ICO, PECR cookies guidance). About 91% of people still agree to terms without reading (Deloitte, 2017). That is why a banner that only says Accept is not disclosure. It is a skip.

Try a cookie choice

Pattern stolen in spirit from GOV.UK cookies and the ICO site banner: Accept extras and Reject extras as equal choices, essential cookies always on, and a line that says what each cookie does. This demo does not track you. It only remembers the last choice in this browser tab.

Then the Digital Humans parallel

Handshake influencer work and a Digital Human are both personas that have to feel real, or people bounce. Cookies and consent are the boring layer that makes that trust possible ... not the face. In the EU, Article 50 of the AI Act makes disclosure a legal obligation for many interactive systems from 2 August 2026 (EU AI Act, Art. 50).

Cookie banner Digital Human
You are told a site is tracking before you proceed. You are told a persona is a system, not a person.
What they take: essential, analytics, preferences. What they take: speech, screen, logs, maybe a CRM (customer relationship management) write-back.
Who set the cookie: this site, or a third party. Who is speaking: the organisation, a model, or a human who took over.
Reject extras. The page still works. Refuse the persona. A human path still exists.

Handshake content creator work practises the same instinct in a career feed: a profile that feels fake gets skipped. Career centres already tell students that. CU Boulder Career Services says a public Handshake profile is five times more likely to be found and messaged by employers (CU Boulder Career Services). NYU Wasserman notes Handshake defaults to a fully public profile unless you opt out (NYU Wasserman, Handshake Info). Students on r/college already ask whether Handshake recruiters are actual people or automated messages (r/college). A public persona still has to be honest about what it is.

Run the four questions

Pick a cookie blurb, or paste your own. Run the four questions. If the blurb cannot answer a slot, the answer says missing ... blurb never says.

The blurb

Answers

  1. What they take

  2. Why

  3. Where it goes

  4. If you say no

How I got here

UX work at IUB Undergraduate Education, August 2025 to December 2025. The same disclosure question now sits in Digital Humans, and in Handshake content that has to feel like a real person talking. Handshake influencer narrative lives on IU Pages.