一句话：通过出声思维与访谈研究 30 名开发者，发现个人知识、网络资源与 AI 助手在支持隐私合规开发上均存在明显不足。
自 GDPR 与 CCPA 实施以来，软件开发者越来越多地在系统设计与实现中面对隐私相关决策，但既有研究表明他们普遍缺乏法律专业知识，难以进行隐私合规开发。为考察现有信息源在支持隐私敏感实现时的实际效果，作者对 30 名开发者开展了定性研究：向参与者呈现一个隐私敏感场景，要求其借助个人知识、在线资源以及 AI 助手识别隐私问题并提出应对措施，同时通过出声思维记录其决策过程，并在后续访谈中加以讨论。结果显示三类信息源均不理想：个人知识不足，网页内容往往过于复杂，AI 助手虽能给出清晰且贴合用户的回答，却缺乏语境相关性，无法识别该场景特有的问题。研究据此指出当前开发者支持体系的重大缺陷，并呼吁提供更易获取、更易理解、更可操作的隐私资源。
Since the introduction of the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), software developers increasingly have to make privacy-related decisions during system design and implementation. However, past research showed that they often lack legal expertise and struggle with privacy-compliant development. To shed light on how effective current information sources are in supporting them with privacy-sensitive implementation, we conducted a qualitative study with 30 developers. Participants were presented with a privacy-sensitive scenario and asked to identify privacy issues and suggest measures using their knowledge, online resources, and an AI assistant. We observed developers' decision-making in think-aloud sessions and discussed it in follow-up interviews. We found that participants struggled with all three sources: personal knowledge was insufficient, web content was often too complex, and while AI assistants provided clear and user-tailored responses, they lacked contextual relevance and failed to identify scenario-specific issues. Our study highlights major shortcomings in existing support for privacy-related development tasks. Based on our findings, we discuss the need for more accessible, understandable, and actionable privacy resources for developers.
@inproceedings{paperbot11927,
title = {“I need to learn better searching tactics for privacy policy laws.” Investigating Software Developers’ Behavior When Using Sources on Privacy Issues},
author = {Stefan Albert Horstmann and Sandy Hong and Maziar Niazian and Cristiana Santos and Alena Naiakshina},
booktitle = {ICSE},
year = {2026},
doi = {10.1145/3744916.3773150}
}