Dr Maria Tzanou
School of Law
Senior Lecturer in Law
Postgraduate Research (PGR) Director


+44 114 222 6811
Full contact details
School of Law
CLG04
Bartolomé House
Winter Street
Sheffield
S3 7ND
- Profile
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Dr Maria Tzanou’s research focuses on European constitutional and human rights law, privacy, data protection, surveillance, the regulation of new and emerging technologies and the inequalities of data privacy law and how these affect vulnerable groups. She is the author of The Fundamental Right to Data Protection. Normative Value in the Context of Counter-Terrorism Surveillance (Hart, 2017) and the editor of Personal Data Protection and Legal Developments in the European Union (IGI Global, 2020) and Health Data Privacy under the GDPR. Big Data Challenges and Regulatory Responses (Routledge, 2021).
She is currently leading an inter-disciplinary research project funded by the Leverhulme Trust on ‘FemTech surveillance: Gendered digital harms and regulatory approaches’. The project explores FemTech’s techno-management of women’s intimate lives by combining both doctrinal research and empirical analysis and aims to develop an egalitarian data privacy law theory.
She acts as permanent scientific advisor to the Greek Ministry of Justice on data protection issues. She co-convenes the UK Society of Legal Scholars (SLS) Cyberlaw Section and is an Associate Editor of European Data Protection Law Review.
Before joining Sheffield, she held positions at the University of Keele and Edge Hill University. In 2018, Maria was awarded the Routledge/ Association of Law Teachers (ALT) ‘Teaching Law with Technology Prize’ for successfully devising and implementing a research-led approach for teaching students the interaction between law and new technologies.
- Qualifications
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• PCLTHE- Keele University
• PhD- European University Institute
• LLM (Comparative, European and International Laws)- European University Institute
• MA (Advanced Public Law) - Université de Bordeaux IV and University of Athens
• LLM (European Union Law) – University of Cambridge
• LLB- University of Athens
- Research interests
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- Data Protection Law
- Privacy Law
- European Human Rights Law
- AI and Emerging Technologies Regulation
- Surveillance
Maria is happy to supervise PhD research in the following areas: privacy and data protection, big data, AI and human rights, surveillance, regulation of emerging technologies.
- Publications
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Books
Edited books
- Personal Data Protection and Legal Developments in the European Union. IGI Global.
Journal articles
- Special Issue Introduction: Against Modern Indentured Servitude (“I’m Spartacus”). IEEE Technology and Society Magazine, 41(2), 20-23.
- Modern Servitude and Vulnerable Social Groups: The Problem of the AI Datafication of Poor People and Women. IEEE Technology and Society Magazine, 41(2), 105-108.
- Privacy International and Quadrature du Net: One step forward two steps back in the data retention saga?. European Public Law, 28(1), 123-154.
- The War Against Terror and Transatlantic Information Sharing: Spillovers of Privacy or Spillovers of Security?. Utrecht Journal of International and European Law, 31(80), 87-103.
- Data protection as a fundamental right next to privacy? 'Reconstructing' a not so new right. International Data Privacy Law, 3(2), 88-99.
- The EU as an emerging 'Surveillance Society': The function creep case study and challenges to privacy and data protection. ICL Journal, 4(3), 407-427.
- Balancing Fundamental Rights: United in Diversity? Some Reflections on the Recent Case Law of the European Court of Justice on Data Protection. Croatian Yearbook of European Law and Policy, 6(6).
- Case T-318/01, Omar Mohammed Othman v. Council of the European Union and Commission of the European Communities, Judgment of the Court of First Instance of 11 June 2009 (. Common Market Law Review, 47(Issue 4), 1233-1253.
- Case-note on Joined Cases C-402/05 P & C-415/05 PYassin Abdullah Kadi & Al Barakaat International Foundationv.Council of the European Union & Commission of the European Communities. German Law Journal, 10(2), 123-154.
- The Kadi Rulings: A Survey of the Literature. Yearbook of European Law, 28(1), 533-558.
- Mapping Data Protection Legal Mobilization Before the CJEU. Nordic Journal of European Law, 7(4), 96-129.
- European Union Regulation of Transatlantic Data Transfers and Online Surveillance. Human Rights Law Review.
Chapters
- The Unexpected Consequences of the EU Right to Be Forgotten, Research Anthology on Privatizing and Securing Data (pp. 1746-1768). IGI Global
- The Unexpected Consequences of the EU Right to Be Forgotten, Personal Data Protection and Legal Developments in the European Union (pp. 279-301). IGI Global
- Data Protection in EU Law After Lisbon, Cyber Law, Privacy, and Security (pp. 73-99). IGI Global
- Data Protection in EU Law after Lisbon, Handbook of Research on Emerging Developments in Data Privacy (pp. 24-50). IGI Global
Conference proceedings papers
Working papers
Dictionary/encyclopaedia entries
Other
- Research group
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Director of Sheffield Centre for International and European Law (SCIEL)
- Grants
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Title/Description Awarding Body People Involved Dates Amounts 'FemTech surveillance: Gendered digital harms and regulatory approaches' Leverhulme Trust Dr Maria Tzanou (P-I), Prof Tsachi Keren-Paz and Dr Marco Ortolani (Co-Is) 2022-2024 £160,090 ‘The ethical and legal challenges of the sharing of health data in social media’ Society of Legal Scholars (SLS) Dr Maria Tzanou 2017- 2018 ‘Brexit and the Law School’ Society of Legal Scholars (SLS) Dr Maria Tzanou 2017
- Teaching activities
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UG Modules:
- Advanced EU Law
- Professional activities and memberships
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• Associate Editor- European Data Protection Law
• Associate Editor- IEEE Technology and Society Magazine (2021- 2022)
• UK Society of Legal Scholars (SLS) Cyberlaw Section Co-convenor
• Member of the European Research Network within The South EU Google Data Governance Chair
• Member of the Society of Legal Scholars
• Member of the Athens Bar Association (GR)- resigned