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CMS Belgrade wins in the world’s largest Global Legal Hackathon

With NoFacePls, a legal-tech innovative solution enabling real-time face blurring during live video streaming, CMS Belgrade plans to change the face of privacy protection.

At the world's largest competition of legal innovations Global Legal Hackathon (GLH2022), CMS Belgrade’s solution for privacy protection NoFacePls was recently announced as a winner in the category “Business of Law”, from among 35 other legal innovations in that category, out of a total of 86 competing teams with more than one thousand members from all around the world.

NoFacePls would allow individuals who do not want to have their faces recorded in live streaming to express their objection by making a specific but simple hand gesture. By utilising Computer Vision and with the power of machine learning, NoFacePls would detect gestures on a live streaming video in real-time and associate it with the face of the person making the gesture. As a result, only that person’s face will be automatically blurred on the screen, respecting the privacy of the person that used their right to object by making the relevant hand gesture.

This solution is a result of joint BD efforts of two innovative and proactive ladies, Maja Živanović, CMS Business Development Country Head, and Dragana Bajić, CMS Partner and Head of Employment and Data Privacy at the CMS office in Serbia. It was conceptualized as a privacy protection product for their client Avatar Ticket B.V. Belgium, who are developing a ground-breaking digital platform, based on the proprietary ticketing application designed to enable a unique viewing experience for the most spectacular live events worldwide.

Dragana Bajić explains the legal challenges this solution should solve: “While assisting Avatar Ticket, we realized that even if people are properly informed in advance about live streaming and the processing of the personal data, there will always be people who will not feel at ease. We came up with an idea to develop a technology that enables data subjects to gain full control over their personal data by hiding the identity of objecting individuals in real-time, as soon as they express their right to object.”

Maja Živanović comments: “Winning in the category Business of Law was a strong validation of our idea and our business reasoning. Our priority is helping our client to excel in personal data privacy in one of the biggest rising digital industries. livestreaming, and thereby ensuring the market distinction of their product. 

Avatar Ticket co-founder and co-CEO, Sandrina Andić, describes the importance of this tool for Avatar Ticket: “When CMS Belgrade invited us to join the team at the Global Legal Hakathon, I was aware of the privacy issues we are facing with streaming outdoor live events worldwide, but I could not imagine that the lawyers would push the limits of innovation by inventing this amazing digital solution. With NoFacePls installed on the Avatar Ticket streaming platform and apps, we will offer our users and all other unwillingly captured event participants privacy protection beyond GDPR requirements. This will set us apart on the market for sure. I am glad that the jury of GLH2022 recognized and rewarded such a business-oriented solution.”

The team was also supported by the IT experts from VEGA IT led by Milan Kosanović, Partner and Software architect, and by a renowned data protection expert from the Serbian data protection authority office, Mr Zlatko Petrović, who provided invaluable support in the project. 

Milan highlights what motivated VEGA IT to join this innovative team at the GLH2022 competition: “Our technical team recognised the potential and challenges behind the idea of the NoFacePls, which motivated them to work on the technical solution from an Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning perspective. Our Data Science team will achieve this by utilizing Computer Vision to detect the gestures and faces in real-time, and map the gestures to the corresponding person's face.”

The team is now preparing to compete for the finals at the GLH2022, and their Team Leader Maja Živanović describes the team atmosphere: “I have great trust in my team. We are all passionate about protecting personal privacy in this new digital era and experienced in our professions. We imagine future NoFacePls being part of every camera on the cell phones out there, protecting not only the privacy savvy people but also those more vulnerable groups, such as children and refugees. This is the kind of digital future we are fighting for at the GLH2022.”  

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CMS Belgrade wins in the world’s largest Global Legal Hackathon
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Key contact

Dragana Bajić
Partner
Belgrade
T +381 11 3208 900