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Singapore HIV Registry Data Leaked Online in Health Breach (bbc.com)
Confidential data about more than 14,000 people diagnosed with HIV, including foreign visitors, has been stolen in Singapore and leaked online. From a report: Authorities revealed details about the 2016 health data breach on Monday. They believe an HIV-positive American whose partner was a senior Singaporean doctor is behind the leak. The hack comes just months after the records of 1.5m Singaporeans, including Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, were stolen last year. Confidential information including names, addresses, HIV status and other medical information is reportedly included in the latest breach. Officials say the details of 5,400 Singaporeans and 8,800 foreigners dating up to January 2013 have been compromised.
The problem is that publicizing HIV+ people's names and info would discourage people at risk from being tested.
It's well known that gays will lie about their HIV status.
As such, all who are HIV-positive should be on a list which can be accessed by anyone.
OK .. I'll run with this. Are we listing people with infectious disease that can kill? or just infectious diseases? or are we just listing STDs that can kill? Or just STDs that can't be cured? Or even just STDs? Would you want any of all of those conditions listed for you own health status to be publicly available? For instance, if you have ever had a cold sore, you technically are at risk for passing it as an STD as HSV-1 will happily live in the genital region and cause all sorts of fun and games.
And how are you going to securely tie a person you want to jump into bed with, with a collection of records in a DB somewhere? Oh, you looked up Fred A. Nurk, and you say he's HIV positive? Well I'm Fred B. Nurk .. totally safe .. now lets get at it!
It seems like your solution is going to involve back tattoos and listing out human readable codes that indicate current health status. And we all know how it worked out the last time that people were tattooed for identification.
And BTW how do you even deal with people who have no idea they are HIV positive and have never been tested?
And why are you singling out gays? HIV is not a "gay" disease.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
This is an excellent response and a great example of why governments should have the bare minimum of power and authority to protect life, liberty, and property.
Most people that advocate for larger and more powerful government seem unable to think two steps ahead as to how that power and authority can be misused.
Government should be given authority to solve a problem ONLY after all other reasonable attempts at solving the problem have failed.