Do I Really Have To Publicly Disclose My HIV Status?

Abstract

Many of the sexual health prevention interventions designed into today's gay and bisexual dating or "hook-up" applications ("apps") ask users to publicly disclose their Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) status, with the intention of helping users make more informed sexual risk decisions. However, the privacy sensitivities around this information are unequal across user groups, with the stigma associated with HIV increasing the sensitivities of this information for HIV positive users. In this position paper, we discuss whether the privacy of this sub-set of users is appropriately respected, and whether providing these users with a non-disclosure option is a viable privacy respecting design strategy. We reflect on the preliminary findings from an interview study and briefly present a number of descriptive conceptual designs to increase privacy around HIV disclosure.