Willem Debeuckelaere

Willem Debeuckelaere is law graduate of the University of Ghent, Belgium. He worked as a lawyer from 1977 till 1995. He was President of the “Human Rights League” from 1982 to 1989. He published on legal aid, constitutional and administrative law, privacy and data protection. He was head of the cabinet of the Belgian Minister of the Interior from 1995 till 1998. He was first nominated judge of the tribunal of first instance and then, in 2002, counsellor of the Court of Appeal of Ghent. He was Vice-President of the “Belgian Commission for the Protection of Privacy” from 2004 till March 2007. He has been President of this Privacy Commission since April 2007 till May 2018. He is the first President of the new GDPR-conform Belgian Data Protection Authority. He is also Vice-President of the “Art. 29 Working Party” since 2016 which became the European Data Protection Board since 25 May 2018. He is academic counsellor since January 2017 and visiting professor since March 2018 at the University of Ghent.  He is a fellow of the Solvay institute of the Free University of Brussels 2016.  He received an outstanding leadership award 2017 from the Belgian Association of Clinical Research Professionals.