What is user identification?

User identification is the act of associating a recorded session with an identity your application already knows, typically a user ID and optionally an email address, so sessions can be searched by person rather than by anonymous visitor.

Why it matters

A support agent has a ticket from a named customer, not a random visitor ID. Without identification, finding that customer's session means guessing from timestamps and page URLs. With it, the agent searches for the user and opens the recording that matches the complaint.

Identification is also a privacy decision. A user ID or email attached to a recording is PII by definition, and it turns an anonymous recording into a named one. Attach it only when you have a basis to, and let data retention expire it on schedule.

How AnyReplay handles it

Both AnyReplay SDKs, web and React Native, expose identify({ userId, email }). Call it after login; the current session is linked to the identity, and email is optional. Identification does not weaken input masking: the password and payment fields the user typed into are masked whatever you configure, and only the values you pass explicitly are stored. Whether to identify at all is a choice covered on the privacy page, and the customer support use case shows why teams usually do.