Prof. Dr. Hielke Hijmans is Chairman of the Litigation Chamber at the Belgian Data Protection Authority and member of the Executive Committee.

He works on part time basis as professor at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB, Institute for European Studies). In addition, he is a member of the Meijers Committee (an NGO on fundamental rights in the EU), and lecturer at Luxembourg University.

He is author of The European Union as Guardian of Internet Privacy: The Story of Art 16 TFEU (Springer 2016), based on his doctorate thesis. Before his appointment at the BE DPA, he worked as a consultant on EU law and data protection at the Centre for Information Policy Leadership (a think tank in Washington, London and Brussels) and Considerati (a consultancy in Amsterdam) among others. He also worked at the European Data Protection Supervisor for over a decade, foremost as head of the Policy and Consultation department. He also worked at the Court of Justice of the European Union (Cabinet of Advocate General Geelhoed) and at the ministries of Agriculture, Environment and Justice in The Hague, mostly dealing with legislation and EU law. He holds a law degree at Leiden University and a doctorate in law at the University of Amsterdam and the Vrije Universiteit Brussels.