Joris van Hoboken

Biography

Joris van Hoboken (1978) is Professor of Law at the Vrije Universiteit Brussels (VUB), appointed to the Chair ‘Fundamental Rights and Digital Transformation’. The Chair is established at the Interdisciplinary Research Group on Law Science Technology & Society (LSTS), with the support of Microsoft. The aim of the Chair is to contribute to a better understanding of the digital transformation and the European regulatory response to these developments, in particular in light of fundamental rights safeguards. The Chair’s research aims are interdisciplinary and international and include the supervision of PhD students. Van Hoboken is also a Senior Researcher at the Institute for Information Law (IViR), Faculty of Law, University of Amsterdam. an Hoboken is also teaching the Course Case Study in Global Privacy and Data Protection at the Institute for European Studies at VUB.

Van Hoboken works on the intersection of fundamental rights protection and the governance of platforms and internet-based services. More generally, his research addresses law and policy in the field of digital media, electronic communications and the internet, with a focus on the fundamental rights to data privacy and freedom of expression and transatlantic relations. He is a specialist in data privacy and the regulation of internet intermediaries and algorithmic governance. Among other appointments, Van Hoboken is a Member of the European Commission’s Observatory on the Online Platform Economy, and a Member of the Steering Group of the Transatlantic High-Level Working Group on Content Moderation Online and Freedom of Expression.

Previously, Van Hoboken was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Information Law Institute (ILI) at New York University, School of Law (2013-2016), a Visiting Scholar at the NYU Stern Center for Business & Human Rights (2015-2016) and a lecturer at CornellTech, Cornell University (2016). In 2008, he was a visiting scholar at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. From 2007-2017, Van Hoboken served on the Board of Directors of the Dutch digital rights organization Bits of Freedom (Chairman of the Board from 2012-2016).

Van Hoboken obtained his PhD from the University of Amsterdam on the topic of search engines and freedom of expression (2012) and has graduate degrees in Law (2006, University of Amsterdam, cum laude) and Theoretical Mathematics (2002, University of Amsterdam, cum laude). For his PhD thesis, he received the thesis award of the Praemium Erasmianum Foundation. Van Hoboken is a regular speaker at international events and conferences and has conducted research for the European Commission, ENISA, UNESCO, Upturn and The Open Society Foundations. His work has been covered in national and international media.