About the IAPP

On January 1, 2014, Andrea Jelinek, who holds a doctorate degree in law, became head of the Austrian Data Protection Authority. While still a student, she worked as a consultant at the Austrian Science Fund (FWF), later as a trainee lawyer and from 1991 as a legal officer at the General Secretariat of the Austrian Rectors' Conference. Two years later, she moved to the Ministry of the Interior, where she first worked as a legal officer and later as head of department in the legal and legislative department. One of her specializations - asylum and immigration law - helped determine her further career. From October 2010 to June 2011 she was head of the Vienna Foreign Police. Before that, in 2003, she was the first woman in Vienna to be appointed head of a police commissioner's office.

Since February 2018, she has also been the Chair of the Article 29 Working Party, which in May 2018 was replaced by the European Data Protection Board, when the General Data Protection Regulation entered into application.