Team

With a background in psychology, Dr. Alina Stövers research focuses on human factors in privacy and security. She specializes in exploring the intersection of technology and human behavior, particularly how different stakeholders perceive and interact with privacy and security measures. Her work contributes significantly to understanding the role of human factors in the design and implementation of privacy-enhancing technologies.
Dr. Stöver worked as a researcher on several privacy and security-related projects at TU Darmstadt, within ATHENE, and as a visiting researcher at ETH Zürich and the University of Glasgow. Within these projects, she applied various methods from psychology and human-centered design, such as field experiments, surveys, interviews, and design sprints. Her focus was on the human aspects of privacy and security, for example, in the development of privacy support tools for different target groups or in creating measures to help website operators mitigate privacy risks on their websites.
Dr. Stöver completed her Ph.D. within the Research Training Group „Privacy and Trust for Mobile Users“ and the Psychology Department at TU Darmstadt. Her thesis, entitled „Investigating How Website Operators Contribute to the Emergence and Elimination of Privacy Risks,“ received multiple awards, including the Award for Outstanding Scientific Achievements for the best dissertation in the Humanities Department at TU Darmstadt.
Dr. Stöver has been a co-editor of the book „Human Factors in Privacy Research“ and has authored or co-authored several high-ranked peer-reviewed publications in the field of usable security and privacy, at conferences and in journals such as USENIX Security, CHI, TOCHI, SOUPS, and PETS.

Human Factors in Privacy

• Improving transparency in data practices
• Examining the challenges faced by website operators in ensuring privacy
• Promoting user self-determination through education and personalized support
• Facilitating human-AI collaboration in the context of digital privacy
• Revealing and combating unethical design practices

• Marky K., Stöver, A., Prange, S., Beck, K., Gerber, P., Zimmermann, V., Müller, F., Alt, F., Mühläuser, M. (2024). Decide Yourself or Delegate – User Preferences Regarding the Autonomy of Personal Privacy Assistants in Private IoT-Equipped Environments. CHI ’24, May 11–16, 2024, Honolulu, HI, USA
• Gerber, N., Stöver, A., & Mayer, P. (2024) Of Mothers and Managers–The Effect of Videos Depicting Gender Stereotypes on Women and Men in the Security and Privacy Field. In Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security (SOUPS 2024)
• Gerber, G., Stöver, A. (2023). From the Privacy Calculus to Crossing the Rubicon: An Introduction to Theoretical Models of User Privacy Behavior. In Gerber, N., Stöver, A. & Marky, K. (Ed.) Human Factors in Privacy Research. Springer Nature (2023).
• Gerber, G., Stöver, A., Peschke, J., Zimmermann, V. (2023). Don’t accept all and continue: Exploring nudges for more deliberate interaction with tracking consent notices. 1, 1 (2023), 35 pages. TOCHI.
• Zimmermann, V., Haunschild, H., Stöver, A., Gerber, N. (2023) Safe AND Secure Infrastructures? – Studying Human Aspects of Safety and Security Incidents with Experts from both Domains. In P. Fröhlich & V. Cobus (Hrsg.). Mensch und Computer 2023 – Workshopband, 03.-06. September 2023, Rapperswil (SG).
• Stöver, A. (2023). Untersuchung des Beitrags von Webseitenbetreibenden zur Entstehung und Behebung von Privatsphärerisiken. Darmstadt, Germany: Dissertation (Dr. rer. nat.), Institut für Psychologie, Technische Universität Darmstadt.
• Stöver, A., Hahn, S., Kretschmer, F., Gerber, N. (2023). Investigating how Users Imagine their Personal Privacy Assistant. In Proceedings on Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PoPETs) (Vol. 2023).
• Stöver, A., Gerber, N., Pridöhl, H., Maass, M., Bretthauer, S., Spiecker, N., Hollick, M., Herrmann, D. (2023) How Website Owners Face Privacy Issues: Thematic Analysis of Responses from a Covert Notification Study Reveals Diverse Circumstances and Challenges. In Proceedings on Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PoPETs) (Vol. 2023).
• Dressler, A., Gerber, N., Menig, A., Pasnicu, O., Stöver, A. & Vogt, J. (2023). Current topics of interdisciplinary cooperation between engineering and human sciences. Zeitschrift für Arbeitswissenschaft, 77, 7-22. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41449-023-00352-y
• Zimmermann, V., Gerber, P., & Stöver, A. (2022). That Depends--Assessing User Perceptions of Authentication Schemes across Contexts of Use. arXiv preprint arXiv:2209.13958.
• Stöver, A., Gerber, N., Cornel, C., Henz, M., Marky, K., Zimmermann, V. & Vogt, J., (2022). Website operators are not the enemy either – Analyzing options for creating cookie consent notices without dark patterns. In Marky, K., Grünefeld, U. & Kosch, T. (Hrsg.), Mensch und Computer 2022 – Workshopband. Bonn: Gesellschaft für Informatik e.V.. https://doi.org/10.18420/muc2022-mci-ws01-458
• Stöver, A., Gerber, N., Kaushik, S., Mühlhäuser, M. & Marky, K. (2021). Investigating Simple Privacy Indicators for Supporting Users when Installing New Mobile Apps. Extended Abstracts of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. Association for Computing Machinery, https://doi.org/10.1145/3411763.3451791
• Maaß, M., Stöver, A., Pridöhl, H., Bretthauer, S., Herrmann, D., Hollick, M., Spiecker, I. (2021). Effective Notification Campaigns on the Web: A Matter of Trust, Framing, and Support. In Proceedings of the 30th USENIX Security Symposium.
• Stöver, A., Kretschmer, F., Cornel, C., & Marky, K. (2020). Work in Progress: How I met my Privacy Assistant–A User-Centric Workshop. Mensch und Computer 2020-Workshopband.
• Marky, K., Voit, A., Stöver, A., Kunze, K., Schröder, S., & Mühlhäuser, M. (2020, October). ” I don’t know how to protect myself”: Understanding Privacy Perceptions Resulting from the Presence of Bystanders in Smart Environments. In Proceedings of the 11th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction: Shaping Experiences, Shaping Society (pp. 1-11).
• Marky, K., Zimmermann, V., Stöver, A., Hoffmann, P., Kunze, K., & Mühlhäuser, M. (2020, April). All in One! User Perceptions on Centralized IoT Privacy Settings. In Extended Abstracts of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1-8).
• A. Stöver (2019): Ongoing Research: Trust in Automation in the Context of Privacy. Posterbeitrag im Rahmen des 15. Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security (SOUPS), Santa Clara, CA, USA, August 11-13, 2019