27 September 2026 · Heather M. Grizzle, Novara Consulting Group · Working record, pending GoSign.AI’s response
Why this record exists
GoSign.AI occupies a position on NCG’s roster that no other company does. Signapse, Kara and the rest build or deploy systems that render or recognise signed language for an end user. GoSign supplies the training data those systems are built from. Its consumer app is a set of gesture-recognition games in which, in the company’s own words, every sign strengthens its models. Its Sign Language Factory pays fluent ASL signers per clip to record prompted signs to camera. Its enterprise offer is “world-class sign language datasets to train your computer vision models,” with custom collection and API access. A defect in what GoSign collects, or in how it obtained the right to collect it, does not stay at GoSign. It propagates into every system trained on the data, including systems a public body may later buy.
That makes GoSign the commercial form of what NCG has called the Corpus Question: whether the people whose signing makes sign language AI possible have consented to what is done with it, on terms they understood, for value that bears some relation to what it is worth. The academic corpora that dominate the field were scraped, carry no consent record and hold no contributor metadata. GoSign asks people to contribute and tells them why, which is a real improvement. This record examines what the published terms of that arrangement are, and what remains unpublished.
The company’s stated standard is the measure used here. Its About page lists among its values that “transparent compensation, GDPR compliance, and responsible data practices are non-negotiable,” and describes the company as “stewards of sign language data, prioritizing ethical collection and community interests above all.” Those are GoSign’s words, and the record reads the company’s documents against them.
What exists today
Terms and Conditions. GoSign publishes identical Terms and Conditions at gosign.ai/terms-and-conditions and home.gosign.ai/terms, retrieved 27 September 2026, with no last-updated date on either copy. The contracting party is GoSign.AI, LLC of Rochester, New York, under New York law with American Arbitration Association arbitration. The terms open with an unusually direct statement of the business model: “We provide a gamified platform where users from all over the world can contribute signs and compete for giveaways. These signs are used for training AI sign language models.” Section 26, headed “Retention and Use of Video Data for AI Sign Language Training,” provides that GoSign “may retain video data submitted by users for the purpose of enhancing and improving our AI sign language training models. We may also share or sell this data.” The Contributions licence grants GoSign “an unrestricted, unlimited, irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, royalty-free, fully-paid, worldwide right, and license to: use, copy, reproduce, distribute, sell, resell, publish, broadcast, retitle, store, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part), and exploit your Contributions (including, without limitation, your image, name, and voice) for any purpose, commercial, advertising, or otherwise,” with the right to sublicense, and users “waive all moral rights” in their Contributions. The feedback clause assigns all intellectual property in any submitted feedback to GoSign “without acknowledgment or compensation.” The Services are for users “at least 16 years of age,” with minors under 18 requiring parental permission and supervision. The Services are stated not to be tailored to HIPAA.
Read against the About page, the terms are consistent with the business and candid about it. Signed video is collected to train models and may be sold. Read against “transparent compensation,” they are silent: nothing in the terms states what, if anything, an app user receives for signing that is retained and sold, beyond the chance to “compete for giveaways.”
Privacy notice. GoSign’s privacy notice (gosign.ai/privacy-policy, last updated 5 October 2023, retrieved 27 September 2026) lists “video recordings” among the personal information collected and, “when necessary, with your consent or as otherwise permitted by applicable law,” three categories of sensitive information: “health data, biometric data, information revealing race or ethnic origin.” It states two purposes that define the company: “To train sign language AI models. Video data is used internally to train AI sign language models,” and “To facilitate access to sign language data by other companies who are training sign language AI models.” Among the categories of third parties with whom information may be shared it lists “Sign Language AI Providers.” In its United States disclosure section it states: “The categories of third parties to whom we sold personal information are: Sign Language AI Providers.” NCG records that as the company’s own statement, made in a document it publishes, that personal information has been sold to sign language AI providers. The notice provides a deletion route at data@gosign.ai. No age provision was located in the notice.
App store listings. The Google Play listing, retrieved 27 September 2026, is where a prospective user first meets the arrangement, and it says so: “every sign strengthens our models.” Its data safety section declares that photos and videos are shared with third parties, that data is encrypted in transit, and that users can request deletion. The age rating is 3+. The Apple App Store listing declares data linked to the user including “body data (hands, head)” and user content (photos and videos), and carries a 13+ rating. The Terms say 16. The Sign Language Factory says 18. Four documents, four ages.
Sign Language Factory. In 2026 GoSign operates a paid contribution platform at tasks.gosign.ai, “Sign Language Factory,” which is the most explicit public description of a sign language data supply chain NCG has located. Contributors must be 18 or over, located in the United States, and native or fluent ASL signers, and must submit an onboarding video “so our team can verify signing ability.” They receive a word prompt, watch a reference signer, and “record yourself copying the sign demonstrated by the reference.” The FAQ explains why: “Sign language includes multiple valid variations for the same word. To build reliable datasets, we collect one variation at a time, represented by the reference shown on the task,” with other variations “collected in later phases.” Clips are one to four seconds. Every clip a contributor records is therefore a reproduction of a reference, not the contributor’s own variety, which is a deliberate and defensible design choice for a recognition corpus and also a linguistic fact about the dataset that a purchaser should know.
The Contributor Services Agreement on that platform, version 1.0, retrieved 27 September 2026, is between the contributor and “Sign Language Factory (‘Company’),” a name that does not correspond to any legal entity identified elsewhere on GoSign’s sites, under Delaware law with Delaware arbitration, where the main Terms name GoSign.AI, LLC under New York law. The agreement pays “$0.05 (five cents USD) for each video clip that is accepted,” including fingerspelled clips, with “no royalties, residuals, or ongoing payments.” In exchange, “upon submission of any video clip, Contributor hereby irrevocably assigns, transfers, and conveys to Company all right, title, and interest in and to such content,” expressly including “all rights to use for AI/ML training and commercial applications,” and waives moral rights. Section 6 provides that “all verified video clips will be displayed publicly on the GoSign.AI website,” “may be shared on public platforms such as GitHub as part of an open ASL dataset,” “will be permanently accessible to the public,” “may be downloaded, viewed, and used by third parties for research, AI training, and other purposes,” and that the “Contributor has no expectation of anonymity regarding their submitted video content.” Section 7 records consent to collection, storage and processing of “biometric identifiers from submitted videos” and their retention “for 3+ years.” The FAQ confirms what follows from the assignment: if a contributor deletes their account, “clips you have submitted remain part of the dataset.”
Two features of that agreement require separate notice. First, the effective date shown at the top of it is not fixed. When retrieved on 27 September 2026 it read “Effective Date: September 27, 2026.” NCG examined the page’s published script and found that the date is generated from the reader’s device clock at the moment the page loads. A contributor who accepted the agreement in any earlier month would, on returning to it, see today’s date. The agreement therefore has no effective date a contributor can cite, and no visible record of whether its terms have changed since they accepted it. Second, the companion Screener Agreement, which governs the peer review of clips, instructs screeners that “every contributor has a right to privacy,” to “treat all contributors as anonymous individuals,” and never to attempt to identify a contributor “based on their appearance.” The Contributor Agreement states that the same contributors have “no expectation of anonymity” and that their faces will be published permanently. Both documents are current on the same site. The Screener Agreement also states a “$5 minimum withdrawal threshold” where the Contributor Agreement states “no minimum payout threshold.”
Screening itself works by peer majority. A screener earns five cents when their approve or reject decision matches the final majority outcome for a clip, and nothing when it does not. Screeners must have “sufficient ASL knowledge,” which is self-assessed. The onboarding verification of contributors is done by “our team,” whose qualifications are not stated. No label accuracy figure, inter-annotator agreement figure or dataset documentation sheet was located for any dataset GoSign offers.
Where the data goes. The FAQ states that datasets may be “used for research and development,” “shared with trusted partners,” and “released within broader AI ecosystems,” and that contributors are informed of this during onboarding and consent before contributing. The company says it “works with industry partners and AI organizations.” The Sign Language Factory home page displays the NVIDIA logo under the heading “Customers.” NCG records the display and draws no inference about what it denotes. No licence terms under which datasets are supplied to purchasers, and no restriction on the applications purchasers may build with them, were located anywhere on GoSign’s sites.
Deaf leadership. GoSign describes itself as Deaf-led, and the About page names its owner, Ryan Hait-Campbell, as a Deaf product designer and developer who uses sign language; the mobile app page describes “Deaf developers combining cultural expertise with technology.” That is a stronger claim than the Deaf employment or Deaf consultation that most subjects on the roster offer, because ownership is decision authority. What the public record does not show is any structure beyond the owner: no advisory body, no charter, no route by which the contributing community can influence what is collected, how it is licensed, or to whom. The company’s public position against dataset monopolisation, and its commitment to release an open ASL dataset on GitHub, are engagement with the governance question rather than avoidance of it, and they are credited as such.
What is done well. This section is deliberately placed where a reader will find it. GoSign discloses the purpose of collection at the point of download, in the store listing, before a user installs anything. It publishes a contributor agreement with a stated rate, stated payout terms, and a stated tax treatment. It obtains express biometric consent rather than burying it. It runs a screening process and explains the rejection criteria. It tells contributors in plain words that their clips survive account deletion, where most companies would leave that to be discovered. It commits to open release of at least part of the corpus. On the roster NCG has reviewed, no other company publishes a comparable account of its data supply chain. Everything that follows should be read with that in mind.
Questions put to GoSign.AI
NCG has put the following questions to GoSign.AI by email, with this record attached. The company’s answers, and any corrections to the record above, is published at the end.
1. Which legal entity contracts with contributors on tasks.gosign.ai under the name “Sign Language Factory,” and under which state’s law? Why does the Contributor Services Agreement display an effective date generated from the reader’s clock, and will GoSign publish a fixed, dated, versioned agreement with a change history?
2. The Contributor Services Agreement pays five cents per accepted clip for an irrevocable assignment of all rights, including commercial and AI training rights, with no royalties. How was that rate set, how does it satisfy the company’s stated value that “transparent compensation” is “non-negotiable,” and what do enterprise purchasers pay for the datasets those clips form?
3. Contributors are told they have “no expectation of anonymity” and that their faces will be published permanently on GitHub and supplied to third parties, while screeners are instructed to treat the same contributors as anonymous. Which is the company’s position? Can a contributor withdraw a clip from the open dataset or from a dataset already delivered to a purchaser, and has any contributor done so?
4. The privacy notice states that personal information was sold to “Sign Language AI Providers.” Which categories of purchaser have received GoSign data, under what licence terms, and with what restrictions on use, including whether high-stakes deployments such as emergency, medical or legal settings are excluded? Does NVIDIA’s appearance under “Customers” on the Sign Language Factory page denote a data licence?
5. The Google Play listing is rated 3+, the App Store 13+, the Terms require 16, and the Factory 18. Which age applies to the app that collects signing for training, and has any signing from users under 18 entered a dataset that was shared or sold?
6. What does “Deaf-led” mean in decision terms beyond the owner? Is there any body or documented route through which contributing Deaf signers can influence what is collected, how it is licensed and to whom, and can any Deaf role at GoSign halt a dataset release or a sale?
7. What measured label accuracy do GoSign’s datasets carry, by what method, and who verified it? What are the qualifications of the team that verifies contributors at onboarding? Does any dataset carry a datasheet stating collection method, contributor population, reference-variety design, known gaps and unsuitable uses?
Provisional assessment
On the evidence located, GoSign.AI has built the most transparent data supply chain on NCG’s roster, and it has built it around an exchange the Deaf people at the bottom of the chain would be right to question. The transparency is not in doubt. A reader can trace, from GoSign’s own documents, the path from a fluent signer recording a three-second clip for five cents, through peer screening, into an open dataset on GitHub and a commercial dataset supplied to AI companies, with the signer’s face attached throughout and the rights assigned irrevocably. Almost no other company in this field lets a reader see that far. The problem is what the reader sees.
Three findings carry the most weight. The first is the exchange itself: five cents per clip, no royalties, all rights assigned, permanence and no anonymity, set against a stated corporate value of transparent compensation and an enterprise offer of “world-class” datasets. The documents do not say what a purchaser pays, so the distance between the two ends of the chain cannot be measured from outside, and NCG has asked. The second is the effective date. An agreement whose date is whatever day the reader opens it is not a fixed instrument, and a contributor cannot establish from it what they agreed to or when. That is a small technical fact with a large governance consequence, and it is the easiest thing in this record to fix. The third is the pair of contradictions between the Contributor and Screener Agreements on anonymity and on payout thresholds, which suggest the documents were drafted separately and not read against each other. None of these is an allegation of bad faith. All of them are things a company that calls itself a steward of sign language data would want to correct.
For the Deaf leadership question, the record shows ownership and does not show structure. That is a different gap from the one at Signapse, where structure exists on paper and authority sits with hearing executives, or at Kara, where participation is documented and authority is not. Here the owner is Deaf and the decision authority sits with the owner. What the contributing community has is a rate card and a consent form, not a seat.
A buyer’s guidance follows from the position GoSign occupies. For an AI company buying GoSign data, the questions are the licence, the consent chain, the label accuracy and the reference-variety design, and whether the biometric consent obtained from contributors reaches the purchaser’s use. For a public body buying a system from a company that trained on GoSign data, the question is simpler and NCG’s instrument does not yet ask it: which datasets was this system trained on, and can the vendor produce the supplier’s datasheet and consent terms? That question belongs in every sign language AI procurement, and this record is one reason why.
Developments after GoSign’s final comments
GoSign’s correction window closed at 17:00 Eastern on 9 October with no correction received. When NCG returned to Sign Language Factory on 17 October 2026, the site had changed. The Factory now publishes its own Terms of Service at tasks.gosign.ai/terms, last updated 17 October 2026, which name GoSign.AI, LLC as the company under New York law and so resolve the entity question for those terms. The Contributor Services Agreement and the Screener Agreement, both publicly readable on 27 September and 7 October, now redirect to a login page. A person deciding whether to contribute can no longer read the contract that governs her clips before creating the account that, under the version NCG reviewed, constituted her acceptance of it. The help page no longer states a rate for fingerspelled clips, and its payment answer now says only that contributors earn money for accepted clips once minimum thresholds are met. No public page NCG located states any rate, including the $0.25 per recording GoSign described to NCG. The NVIDIA logo remains under “Customers” on the sign-up page. The new Terms retain Section 26, under which GoSign may share or sell video data, and contain no de-identification or facial-likeness language. They open with a minimum age of 16 and in Section 3 have users represent that they are not under 13. NCG has not seen the contributor agreement now behind the login and makes no statement about its current contents. GoSign may respond to this section or not; any response will be published with it in full.
Quellen
– GoSign.AI Terms and Conditions, gosign.ai/terms-and-conditions and home.gosign.ai/terms (identical text, no last-updated date), retrieved 27 September 2026.
– GoSign.AI Privacy Notice, gosign.ai/privacy-policy, last updated 5 October 2023, retrieved 27 September 2026.
– GoSign.AI, About page, home.gosign.ai/about, retrieved 27 September 2026.
– GoSign.AI home page, home.gosign.ai, and mobile app page, gosign.ai/mobileapp, retrieved 27 September 2026.
– Sign Language Factory, tasks.gosign.ai: home page, Help and FAQ, Contributor Services Agreement v1.0, Screener Agreement, retrieved 27 September 2026; page script examined the same day for the effective-date function.
– Google Play listing for GoSign.AI (developer Gosign.ai LLC, Rochester, NY), retrieved 27 September 2026.
– Apple App Store listing for GoSign.AI (id6470105889), retrieved 27 September 2026.
– NCG, SLAT-SNAP-GOSIGN v0.1, public-evidence review, 1 August 2026 (internal).