Dr Argyro Karanasiou

Dr Argyro Karanasiou

Birmingham Law School
Assistant Professor in Law and Innovation

Contact details

Address
Birmingham Law School
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Dr Argyro Karanasiou joined the School of Law at the University of Birmingham in 2022 as a Lecturer in Law & Innovation (College of Arts & Law), and further awarded Associate status at the School of Computer Sciences (College of Engineering & Physical Sciences). She is the Director for the MSc in Responsible Data Science, a programme developed in collaboration with Accenture aiming to equip graduates with critical data science skills. Argyro is also the founding Director of LETS Lab (Law, Emerging Tech & Science), and a research affiliate at the BHRE (Business, Human Rights and the Environment) at the University of Greenwich, where she previously held the post of Associate Professor in Information Technology Law.  

Argyro’s work is contributing to the growing body of ‘law and emerging technologies’ transdisciplinary scholarship and has earned her visiting research affiliations with Yale Law School (ISP Alumna), NYU Law (ILI Alumna), Harvard Law (affiliate Faculty staff CopyX), Complutense Madrid (ITC). Her research spans a wide range of areas ranging from wearable tech and regulation of health data to Brain-Machine-Interfaces and embodiment, which all share a common underlying theme of re-conceptualisation of autonomy in an era of rapid automation. Her work has yielded outputs that have involved both original research and knowledge exchange/enterprise elements and have been funded externally as well as internally through competitive funds, such as the Innovate UK (2021), the Higher Education Innovation Funding (2021), the Peter Harris Trust Fund (2020), Erasmus+ (2019), Santander (2017), and the Internet Society (2015).  

Dr Karanasiou has contributed invited expert insights to several national and international technology related initiative and policy fora, most notably for the Innovate UK KTN (Next Generation Legal Services – 2022), the Equality and Human Rights Commission (AI in recruitment – 2020), the Chatham House (Internet Governance – 2018), the US Air Force (AI & Augmented Cognition – 2018), the Royal Society (Machine Learning – 2016), and the Electronic Frontiers Foundation (Free Trade Agreements and Human Rights – 2016). Furthermore, she has served as a contracted consultant for the Council of Europe (regional Southeastern Europe expert in Digital Media), and as an OSCE expert for Online Freedom of Expression. Currently, Dr Karanasiou serves at the British Academy’s ECRN Advisory Board, supporting the civic academic and impactful strategies stream.  

Qualifications

  • Doctor of Philosophy in Law (PhD), University of Leeds
  • Master of Laws in Public Policy (LLM), National Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece
  • Bachelor of Laws (LLB Hons), National Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece.
  • Admitted to the Athens Bar (State exam before the Greek Supreme Court) – Clerked at the Legal Council of State.

Biography

Argyro read for an LLB (Hons) and subsequently for an LLM in Public Policy at the National University of Athens in Greece (magna cum laude), before obtaining a PhD in Information Technology Law at the University of Leeds. She briefly practiced law as a legal advisor to the Technical University of Athens, having qualified a lawyer (Athens Bar – state exam before the Supreme Court and clerked at the Legal Council of State in Greece. Since then, she has embarked on an academic career that spans a wide range of Higher Education Institutions worked at: Since January 2022 she holds a Lectureship in Law and Innovation at the Birmingham Law School, having previously held the position of Associate Professor in Information Technology Law at the University of Greenwich. Prior to this, she worked as a Senior Lecturer in Law at Bournemouth University, whilst also holding cross-departmental research affiliations with the Centre for Intellectual Policy Property & Management (research lead for Digital Rights) and with the Data Science Institute.

Postgraduate supervision

Dr Karanasiou’ s principal research interests are in regulatory design of emerging technologies, particularly looking at the promotion of autonomy in times of rapid automation within and beyond the digital sphere. Argyro welcomes enquiries from motivated and qualified applicants from all around the world who are interested in pursuing PhD study under her supervision.


Find out more - our PhD Law  page has information about doctoral research at the University of Birmingham.

Research

Dr Karanasiou’s research focusses on the relationship between Law and Emerging Technologies and falls within three general lines of work:  1. Data Governance, 2. Legal Tech and law computability, and 3. Regulating mixed interfaces (Human-Computer Interactions). Although distinct, all three lines of work result from recent technological advancements and are closely related to digital humanities (data governance), critical data studies (FAccT in Machine Learning) and human rights, whilst also benefiting from a truly interdisciplinary approach (STEM, Media & Communications, Neuroscience). Her published work is widely cited in leading textbooks (Information Technology Law, OUP 2019), educational material (LSE LL204 Cyberlaw Syllabus, Greek Open University Syllabus), United Nations Cybercrime courses (UNODC’s Education for Justice Module Series 2019), and several MSc/LLM/PhD Theses at the Universities of Delft, Ghent, Utrecht, Tilburg, KU Leuven, and Turku Finland.

Argyro’s research is highly recognised both within her discipline and externally, by the wider academic and policy community. She has often been invited to deliver talks at international prestigious fora, such as the world-leading multidisciplinary CPDP conference (invited twice: by the University of Amsterdam, and by the University of Turin), at the University of Oxford, at the University of Amsterdam, at Boston University, at Stanford University, at Yale Law School, at New York University, at IDC Herzliya in Israel. To support her research, Argyro has successfully bid for funding from both external and internal sources, including funding as the principal investigator for 17 projects over the last 10 years. These projects have involved original research and knowledge exchange/enterprise, whilst often partnering with high profile collaborators and have yielded deliverables of international focus and appeal.

A firm believer in impactful academic interdisciplinary networks, Argyro is currently sitting on the British Academy’s ECRN Advisory Board, contributing to the civic academic WG. In the past she has served at the steering committee for GIGANET (Chair of Communication Committee, 2016), at the editorial advisory board for IGI Global, as a guest editor for the European Journal for Law Computers and Technology,  as expert evaluator for the Swiss National Foundation and for the Newbreed doctoral programme in Sweden,  as a reviewer for eight international journals, and as invited Programme Committee member to three international conferences.

Publications

Recent publications

Book

Douilhet, E & Karanasiou, AP 2016, Legal responses to the commodification of personal data in the era of big data: The paradigm shift from data protection towards data ownership. IGI Global. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-5225-0182-4.ch009

Article

Karanasiou, AP & Pinotsis, DA 2017, 'A study into the layers of automated decision-making: emergent normative and legal aspects of deep learning', International Review of Law, Computers & Technology, vol. 31, no. 2, pp. 170-187. https://doi.org/10.1080/13600869.2017.1298499

Karanasiou, AP 2017, 'The End of Ownership: Personal Property in the Digital Economy', SCRIPT-ed. https://doi.org/10.2966/scrip.140217.401

Karanasiou, AP 2016, 'Law encoded: Towards a free speech policy model based on decentralized architecture', First Monday, vol. 21, no. 12. https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v21i12.7118

Karanasiou, AP & Kang, S 2016, 'My Quantified Self, my FitBit and I', Digital Culture & Society, vol. 2, no. 1. https://doi.org/10.14361/dcs-2016-0109

Chapter (peer-reviewed)

Barfield, W, Karanasiou, A & Chagan Feferkorn, K 2022, Considering intellectual property law for embodied forms of artificial intelligence. in R Abbott & D Geffen (eds), Research Handbook on Intellectual Property and Artificial Intelligence. Edward Elgar, pp. 39-63. <https://www.e-elgar.com/shop/gbp/research-handbook-on-intellectual-property-and-artificial-intelligence-9781800881891.html>

Karanasiou, A 2020, On Being Transhuman: The Legal Challenges posed by Brain-Machine Interfaces. in Cambridge Handbook on Law and Algorithms. Cambridge University Press.

Book/Film/Article review

Karanasiou, A 2018, 'Book Review: Meyer ET, Schroeder R.: Knowledge Machines: Digital Transformations of the Sciences and Humanities', Digital Icons .

Conference contribution

Karanasiou, A & Pinotsis, D 2017, Towards a legal definition of machine intelligence: the argument for artificial personhood in the age of deep learning. in Proceedings of the 16th edition of the International Conference on Articial Intelligence and Law - ICAIL '17. https://doi.org/10.1145/3086512.3086524

Other contribution

Karanasiou, A, Diker Vanberg, A & Kliaris, C 2020, Report on Infodemics, prepared for the Forum on Information and Democracy..

Karanasiou, A, Naik, R, Chowdhury, N, Coldicutt, R, Corrigan, R, Crowcroft, J, Gervassis, N, Grossman, W, Harkens, A, Henderson, T, Hintz, A, Huppert, J, Korff, D, Mapp, M, Jackman, M, Tambini, D, Veale, M, Sommer, P, Callender Smith, R, Phippen, A, Price, B, McStay, A, McEvedy, V, Romero Moreno, F, Rosner, G & Ruiz, J 2020, ‘Written evidence to the Joint Committee on Human Rights..

Karanasiou, A 2019, Evidence to the Chatham House Commission on Democracy and Technology..

Karanasiou, A 2019, Written evidence to the Lords Select Committee on Democracy and Digital Technologies..

Karanasiou, A 2019, ‘Respondent contribution to EuroDIG on the report “The age of digital interdependence”’, UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on Digital Cooperation..

Review article

Karanasiou, A 2017, 'Book review: Perzanowki A, Schultz, J.: The End of Ownership: Personal Property in the Digital Economy', SCRIPT-ed.

View all publications in research portal

Expertise

data governance; regulatory aspects of AI systems; internet governance and content moderation; Fairness, Accountability, Transparency in Machine Learning; ethics of embodied tech (Brain-Machine interfaces)

Languages and other information

Greek (native), English (professional, CPE – University of Cambridge), German (ZMP – Goethe Institut), Russian (Pushkin Institute), Spanish (DBE – Cervantes Institute).

Expertise

data governance; regulatory aspects of AI systems; internet governance/content moderation; Fairness, Accountability, Transparency in Machine Learning; ethics of embodied tech (Brain-Machine interfaces)

Policy experience