Tanguy Van Overstraeten
Partner, Global Head of Privacy and Data Protection, Brussels
I have over 30 years’ experience as a lawyer. In an increasingly challenging environment where digital transformation has become crucial for the economy and where data has become a key asset of many businesses, I offer clients clarity and well-considered, creative solutions.”
Overview
Professional experience
Education
Overview
Tanguy is widely regarded as a leading IT law practitioner. He has comprehensive expertise in IT procurement and outsourcing as well as data protection and information governance in general, including in-depth knowledge of the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
Tanguy has extensive experience in advising multinationals on local and international large-scale transactions and regulatory projects across a wide spectrum of industry sectors.
Tanguy leads the firm’s global data protection practice and heads the firm’s technology, media & telecommunications team in Brussels.
Clients stress that he is "a source of a wealth of information and a reference for data protection on an international basis," he is a lawyer whose "intervention can turn around a company and change their way of thinking." (Chambers 2019) He is also praised for his business-savvy style, and "appreciated as a sparring partner when weighing options and defining a pragmatic approach to complex privacy challenges." (Chambers 2021)
Work highlights
Tanguy has led many market-significant digitalisation, cloud, outsourcing and other IT related transactions as well as data protection projects. These include advising:
- Proximus on the development and operation of a new web-based and mobile device application for medical teleconsultation in Belgium
- A growing number of international clients in relation to global data breaches
- An asset management institution on the drafting and negotiation of all contractual documentation relating to a major digitalisation project with a US IT supplier, including regulatory aspects and implementation
- A French global bank on the development and adoption of Binding Corporate Rules to enable international data transfers within the group
- A Japanese international technology giant on various ‘Internet of Things’-related matters as well as CCTV and facial recognition
- A group of banks and insurance companies in the negotiations with IBM of a project aiming at replacing their existing contractual framework for the provision of infrastructure services and related IT services
Professional experience
Tanguy is active in a number of professional organisations aiming at fostering information management and reviewing the related regulatory environment.
Since 2018, Tanguy is active as one of the 27 selected experts of the multi-stakeholder group of the EU Commission to support the application of the GDPR throughout the EU. His mandate was renewed for three more years in 2022.
He is data protection issue lead of the Digital Economy Committee of the American Chamber of Commerce to the European Union and has been elected as a member of its Board of Directors.
For four years, he has been a member of the European Advisory Board of the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP).
He is also a member of the GDPR Advisory Committee of the University of Brussels and a member of the Editorial Boards of Digital Health Legal and Computer and the Telecommunications Law Review.
Tanguy teached on data protection and sourcing at the Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management, which is part of the University of Brussels.
He speaks regularly at major conferences on data protection and IT related matters throughout Europe and beyond.
Further to his work in Japan in the early nineties, Tanguy is also Vice-Chair of the Belgium-Japan Association & Chamber of Commerce and Chair of its Executive Committee. In 2018, he has been awarded the Order of the Rising Sun, with Gold Rays and Rosette by the Japanese government for his contribution to the reinforcement of economic relations between Japan and Belgium.
Education
Tanguy studied law at the University of Brussels (ULB) and holds a master’s in law (LL.M) from the University of Chicago (the Law School).
He speaks French, English, Dutch and Japanese.