Jan Kerkhofs

Federal Magistrate, Federal Prosecutor’s Office of Belgium

Jan Kerkhofs is a Federal Magistrate at the Belgian Federal Prosecutor's Office in Brussels. From 2013 until 2018 he was deployed in the Counter-Terrorism Unit as a cybercrime specialist and specialized counter-terrorism magistrate. He has built up an extensive experience in federal and international terrorism and cybercrime cases, with a special focus on online investigation techniques and trans-border gathering of digital evidence and traces. Currently he is the Head of the Cyber Unit of the Belgian Federal Prosecutor’s Office, created in 2018 within the Organized Crime Division of the Belgian Federal Prosecutor's Office. He leads alpha-case cyber investigations and coordinates national and international cybercrime investigations, and he leads a team of 4 specialized high tech crime prosecutors and 6 legal attachés.

He holds a Master of Laws degree from the KULeuven, Belgium (1996) and a Diplôme d’Études Approfondies (DEA) en Droit Pénal et Sciences Pénales, from l’Université Panthéon-Assas-Paris II, Paris, France (1997). He also holds a SANS GSEC401 certification in Cyber Security and is a certified cyber security professional with technical knowledge and expertise.

Jan Kerkhofs is a national and international recognized cybercrime expert. He is a board member of the Belgian Expertise Network on Cybercrime. He is a government expert and advisor in matters of cybercrime, counter-terrorism and special investigation methods. He is also assigned as expert of the Belgian delegation in the Convention Committee on Cybercrime (T-CY) of the Council of Europe, and is a national representative of Belgium in the European Judicial Cybercrime Network (EJCN) at Eurojust.

Jan Kerkhofs is a Belgian Federal Police and Judiciary trainer and is co-responsible for the training in cybercrime, handling electronic evidence and online investigations of newly appointed magistrates and specialized cybercrime magistrates at the Belgian Judicial Training Institute (IGO). He also gives training in counter-terrorism and cybercrime matters for several law enforcement agencies, bar associations and international institutions (Council of Europe, IAP/GPEN, OSCE, TAIEX, ERA, EJTN, ICCT). He is a trainer of trainers in cybercrime and electronic evidence matters and trained magistrates in Europe, South Asia, Southwest Asia, the Pacific and Africa.

He publishes regularly on the subject of cybercrime and counter-terrorism and is co-author of the Belgian standard work and field manual on cybercrime "Cybercrime" (2013) and its successor “Cybercrime 3.0” (2019), the book “Comparative Analysis of the Belgian and Dutch Substantive Terrorism Legislation” and the book “Counter-terrorism: the judicial approach of terrorism in Belgium”.