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Niels Vandezande

Legal consultant
Time.lex
Participates in 1 Session

Niels Vandezande is specialised in FinTech law, in particular virtual currencies, electronic payments, and blockchain.

Niels also has extensive experience in privacy and data protection law (GDPR), security and trust services, identity management, digital archiving, e-government, e-commerce, e-health, and public information availability and re-use.

Academic activities

Between 2009 and 2014 Niels was a researcher and between 2014 and 2018 a PhD researcher at the Centre for IT & IP Law (CiTiP) at the Law Faculty of the University of Leuven. He is currently a research fellow at this Centre. He mainly conducted legal research on blockchain and FinTech.

In March 2018, he defended his doctoral thesis entitled “Regulating Virtual Currencies: A Legal Assessment of Digital Representations of Value Under Financial and Economic Law” on the regulatory issues surrounding virtual currencies, including cryptocurrencies. The thesis analyses whether the existing legal frameworks regarding non-physical currencies and payment methods – the EU E-Money Directive and EU Payment Services Directive – can apply or whether they should be amended to apply to virtual currencies.

He has been involved in various research projects, such as:

  • Blockchain for online Service Security (BoSS, imec, 2017-2019)
  • TTPs and cryptocurrencies (SWIFT Institute grant, 2015)
  • Originality in Belgian law (Flanders Scientific Fund – FWO, 2015-2018)
  • Trustworthy Belgian key internet services (TRU-BLISS, iMinds, 2014-2016)
  • Cloud for Europe (C4E, EU FP7, 2013-2016)
  • SOcial, LOcal & Mobile IDEntity Management (SoLoMIDEM, iMinds, 2013-2014)
  • Mobile Meets Communities (CoMobile, iMinds, 2012-2013)
  • Usable TRUST in the Internet of Things (uTRUSTit, EU FP7, 2010-2013)
  • Digital OR and remote visualisation of surgical images (TeleSurgery, iMinds, 2011-2012)
  • Global Identity Networking of Individuals - Support Action (GINI-SA, EU FP7, 2010-2012)
  • Mobility & Routing (MobiRoute, iMinds, 2009-2011)
  • TrUsted Revocable Biometric IdeNtitiEs (TURBINE, EU FP7, 2008-2011)

Education

  • PhD in Law, University of Leuven (2018)
  • Law degree, University of Leuven (2009)

Sessions in which Niels Vandezande participates

Wednesday 1 September, 2021

Time Zone: (GMT+01:00) Brussels
11:45 AM
11:45 AM