Karola Marky

Professor for Digital Sovereignty

About Me

I am a professor at the Ruhr University Bochum (RUB), where I lead the Digital Sovereignty Lab – in short: DigiSoul. We investigate digital sovereignty, the capacity of individuals (e.g., end-users or developers), institutions (e.g., universities or companies) or states (e.g., administrations or governments) for informational self-determination.

Since 2022, I am a principal investigator (PI) in the DFG-funded Cluster of Excellence CASA “Securing the Digital Society”, which currently is in its second funding phase. Furthermore, I am a member of the Council for Ethics and Responsibility of the University Alliance Ruhr, and the University Commission for Diversity.

Before joining RUB, I was a junior professor at the Leibniz University in Hannover at the chair Human-Centered Security of Prof. Sascha Fahl and a postdoctoral researcher in GIST research section at the University of Glasgow, UK. Since 2020, I hold a PhD in Computer Science from the Technical University of Darmstadt.

Check out the CASA stories video about my lab, the Nackgehackt podcast on online voting or digital sovereignty.

Interested in a comic of our research, take a look here, or download it as PDF here. More information about the comic and options to order it can be found on the CASA website.

🠶 Find me also at:

Selected Recent Activities

🠶 For a full list, click here.

🠶 Chair roles
  • Paper & Technical Program Chair at MUM 2026
  • Poster Chair at SOUPS 2026
  • Vice Chair at Usenix Security 2027
  • General Chair at AHs ’23 & ’24
  • Workshop Chair at MuC 2023
🠶 Program Committees
  • Associate Chair of CHI 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025, 2026, 2027
  • PC Member of SOUPS 2024, 2025, 2026
  • PC Member of Usenix Security 2025, 2026
  • PC Member of PETS 2026, 2027
  • PC Member of CCS 2025, 2026
  • PC Member of MUM 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025

Awards & Recognition

  • Honourable Mention Award at CHI 2025 & 2026
  • Distinguished Reviewer Award at Usenix Security 2025
  • Best Reviewer Award at ICALT 2023
  • Honourable Mention Award at MUM 2021
  • Honourable Mention Award at MuC 2021

Selected Recent Publications

🠶 For a full list, click here.

2026
  • Szczepaniak, Justin, Verena Zimmermann, Karola Marky. “Let Me Take That Back”: Designing and Testing Deletion Interfaces for Human-AI Interaction, In: Proceedings of Mensch und Computer 2026. 145-156. ACM.
    🔗 Database
  • Kanyu Chen, Rebecca Panskus, Erwin Wu, Yichen Peng, Daichi Saito, Emiko Kamiyama, Ruiteng Li, Chen-Chieh Liao, Karola Marky, Kato Akira, Hideki Koike, Kai Kunze. Sensing Your Vocals: Exploring the Activity of Vocal Cord Muscles for Pitch Assessment Using Electromyography and Ultrasonography, In: Proceedings of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI). ACM.
    🔗 Database | 🏆 Honourable Mention Award
  • Priyasha Chatterjee, Smirity Kaushik, Karola Marky, Yixin Zou. It Shouldn’t Be This Difficult: Researcher Perspectives on Diversity and Inclusion in Usable Privacy and Security Research, In: Proceedings of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI). ACM.
    🔗 Database
    • 2025
  • Lena Swienty, Rebecca Panskus, Stefanie Miketta, Beyza Kircili, Sen Cheng, Karola Marky. Investigating User Perceptions of Visualising Inferred Sensitive Information as Privacy Avatars, In: Proceedings of the 24th International Conference on Mobile and Ubiquitous Multimedia (MUM). ACM.
    🔗 Database
  • Reyhan Düzgün, Philip Klostermeyer, Lena Swienty, Sascha Fahl, Karola Marky. Towards Secure and Usable XR Authentication Schemes for Head-Mounted Displays: A Co-Creation Study with Experts, In: ACM Symposium on Virtual Reality Software and Technology (VRST).
    🔗 Database
  • Sarah Abdelwahab Gaballah, Lamya Abdullah, Ephraim Zimmer, Sascha Fahl, Max Mühlhäuser, Karola Marky. “It’s Not My Data Anymore”: Exploring Non-Users’ Privacy Perceptions of Medical Data Donation Apps, In: Proceedings on Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETS), 2025(1), 654-670.
    🔗 Database
  • Noé Zufferey, Sarah Abdelwahab Gaballah, Karola Marky, Verena Zimmermann. “AI is from the devil.” Behaviors and Concerns Toward Personal Data Sharing with LLM-based Conversational Agents. In: Proceedings on Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETS), 2025(3), 5-28.
    🔗 Database
  • Sarah Delgado Rodriguez, Maximiliane Windl, Florian Alt, Karola Marky. The TaPSI Research Framework – A Systematization of Knowledge on Tangible Privacy and Security Interfaces, In: Proceedings of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI).
    📼 Presentation | 🔗 Database
  • Jan-Ulrich Holtgrave, Sabrina Klivan, Karola Marky, Sascha Fahl. A Qualitative Study of Adoption Barriers and Challenges for Passwordless Authentication in German Public Administrations, In: Proceedings of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI).
    🔗 Database
  • Felix Reichmann, Jens Christian Opdenbusch, Karola Marky, Marco Gutfleisch. Security Knight in Shining Armor: What and Who VPN Providers Claim to Shield Consumers Against, In: Proceedings of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI). ACM.
    🔗 Database
  • Verena Zimmermann, Stina Schäfer, Markus Dürmuth, Karola Marky. Authenticate As You Go: From Exploring Smart Home Authentication with Daily Objects to Authenticating with Primary Tasks, In: ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI). ACM.
    🔗 Database
    • 2024
  • Jonas Hielscher, Markus Schöps, Jens Opdenbusch, Felix Reichmann, Marco Gutfleisch, Karola Marky, and Simon Parkin. Selling Satisfaction: A Qualitative Analysis of Cybersecurity Awareness Vendors’ Promises, In: Proceedings of the 2024 on ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS). ACM.
    🔗 Database
  • Karola Marky, Nina Gerber, Henry John Krumb, Mohamed Khamis and Max Mühlhäuser. Investigating Voter Perceptions of Printed Physical Audit Trails for Online Voting, In: Proceedings of the IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (SP). IEEE.
    🔗 Database
  • Sabrina Amft, Sandra Höltervennhoff, Rebecca Panskus, Karola Marky, and Sascha Fahl. Everyone for Themselves? A Qualitative Study about Individual Security Setups of Open Source Software, In: Proceedings of the IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (SP). IEEE.
    🔗 Database
  • Sarah Abdelwahab Gaballah, Lamya Abdullah, Mina Alishahi, Thanh Hoang Long Nguyen, Ephraim Zimmer, Max Mühlhäuser, and Karola Marky. Anonify: Decentralized Dual-level Anonymity for Medical Data Donation, In: Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium (PETS), 2024(4).
    🔗 Database
  • Habiba Farzand, Melvin Abraham, Stephen Brewster, Mohamed Khamis, and Karola Marky. A Systematic Deconstruction of Human-Centric Privacy & Security Threats on Mobile Phones, In: International Journal of Human–Computer Interaction. Taylor & Francis.
    🔗 Database
  • Sarah Delgado Rodriguez, Priyasha Chatterjee, Anh Dao Phuong, Florian Alt, and Karola Marky. Do You Need to Touch? Exploring Correlations between Personal Attributes and Preferences for Tangible Privacy Mechanisms, In: Proceedings of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI). ACM.
    📼 Presentation | 🔗 Database | 🏆 Honourable Mention Award
  • Karola Marky, Alina Stöver, Sarah Prange, Kira Bleck, Paul Gerber, Verena Zimmermann, Florian Müller, Florian Alt, and Max Mühlhäuser. Decide Yourself or Delegate – User Preferences Regarding the Autonomy of Personal Privacy Assistants in Private IoT-Equipped Environments, In: Proceedings of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI). ACM.
    📹 Video | 🔗 Database
  • Habiba Farzand, Karola Marky and Mohamed Khamis. Out-of-Device Privacy Unveiled: Designing and Validating the Out-of-Device Privacy Scale (ODPS), In: Proceedings of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI). ACM.
    📹 Video | 🔗 Database
    • 2023
  • Karola Marky, Shaun MacDonald, Yasmeen Abdrabou, and Mohamed Khamis. In the Quest to Protect Users from Side-Channel Attacks — A User-Centred Design Space to Mitigate Thermal Attacks on Public Payment Terminals, In: Proceedings of the Usenix Security Symposium. Usenix Association.
    📰 PDF | 📼 Presentation | 🔗 Database
  • Mark Turner, Martin Schmitz, Morgan Masichi Bierey, Mohamed Khamis and Karola Marky. Tangible 2FA – An In-the-Wild Investigation of User-Defined Tangibles for Two-Factor Authentication. In: Proceedings of the Usenix Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security (SOUPS). Usenix Association.
    📰 PDF | 📼 Presentation | 🔗 Database
  • Rebecca Panskus, Max Ninow, Sascha Fahl and Karola Marky. Privacy Mental Models of Electronic Health Records: A German Case Study. In: Proceedings of the Usenix Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security (SOUPS). Usenix Association.
    🔗 Database
  • Verena Zimmermann, Karola Marky and Karen Renaud. Hybrid password meters for more secure passwords — A comprehensive study of password meters including nudges and password information, In: Behaviour & Information Technology. Taylor & Francis.
    🔗 Database
  • Jiawen Han, George Chernyshov, Moe Sugawa, Dingding Zheng, Danny Hynds, Taichi Furukawa, Marcelo Padovani Macieira, Karola Marky, Kouta Minamizawa, Jamie A Ward and Kai Kunze. Linking audience physiology to choreography, In: ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI). ACM.
    🔗 Database