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Comment by praptak | Hacker News Reader

It looks that at least one aspect could have a technical solution. I'm talking about this part: ""And if the sex didn't go well, then sometimes they will block the person from their app and they don't even know how to reach that person again."

It looks like the apps could have an emergency notification mechanism to help with that. Phone companies must implement 911, hookup companies should be required to implement an infection notification mechanism.

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That could be great, because it could also enable "someone you've been with reported sick, get tested" which would remove a lot of awkward interactions / barriers for reporting. Then again... do we really want dating apps with more or less full network and history of STIs of its users?

Seems like it'd be dipping into HIPAA territory at that point.

You're saying that, in such a scenario, dating apps might be considered health care providers in some jurisdictions?

That would have nothing to do with HIPAA. HIPAA generally only covers patient information held by health providers, payers, etc. It only applies to "covered entities", which is a specific set of entities. It's a myth that HIPAA applies to health information generally. There's even dispute about whether or not HIPAA applies to doctors and medical services who don't accept insurance ( https://www.lebauerconsulting.com/hipaa-is-my-cash-practice-... )

(although some states have more strict health privacy laws)

HIPPA is a societal choice. We can change it.

This would be a voluntary self-disclosure. Similar to current restaurant COVID contract tracing projects.

Well, it's self-disclosure, and it could be implemented in such a way that your health information isn't really shared with anyone. A message like "One of your recent matches reported a concern about an STD. It might be a good idea to get tested." doesn't necessarily reveal much personal information.

A possibly good idea, but needs protections against false alarms (such as somebody pranking anonymously all their previous contacts), or people will start to abuse it and later other people will start ignoring the alarms.

I am not sure how to solve this. Perhaps a certified doctor could trigger that alarm and nobody else.

It seems to work for covid trackers app. Can't the same techniques be applied to dating app data ?

I see quite a lot of potential for abuse, and very low benefits for the apps to implement that process properly.

the suggestion was 'required'. being compliant with local laws surely should be one of the benefits.

How about having a doctor and clinic be in the loop in order for someone to actually be notified?

What we really need is a standard for signed certificates (verified claims) from labs, showing that you tested for X recently and the result. People will start asking for these before sex.

We have concert passes in our Apple Wallet but not these?

You can ask for such a a thing now but most people do not. I think especially if you’re pursuing the kind of extreme level of sex described in this piece it’s not likely

Or a blockchain for sex! We can verify who slept with who and got what virus.

Actually, maybe let’s not do this

That'd be a boon for genealogists.

If the tests refered to earlier tests they would form a Merkle tree, not a blockchain. A Merkle tree is not a bad idea, because it is privacy preserving whereas a blockchain isn't.

Why would you use a blockchain? Google “verifiable claims”.

I am talking about a completely private and voluntary MECHANISM to have a way to PROVE that you went to a clinic for X and got result Y. What cultural and subcultural norms arise from that is anyone’s guess but why not have that OPTION available? Right now every clinic has its own incompatible way to prove to yourself — and no one else — the results of a test you took a lot effort to get.

Not sure how this would actually work. You usually have hundreds of matches and few substantial conversations per every sexual encounter. I feel like the signal to noise ratio would make it impractical to get tested every time anyone I ever matched with reported an STI. Would you need to report having had sexual contact with someone to improve accuracy? I know I wouldn’t be providing that data to Tinder.

You probably already are, via location tracking. Two matches’ phones reading the same wifi access point all night suggests an extremely limited set of implications.

Using that logic basically everyone in P-Town would get a notification whenever anyone else in P-Town reported an infection.

> the same wifi access point all night

I see you are not familiar with most Grindr hookups.

I think this is a great idea, making it much easier to do semi-anonymous STD notification. Sadly, after googling "grindr std notification" I found a bunch of articles around mid-2018 about Grindr "investigating" such a feature, but it certainly never implemented it, and no other info on it in the past 3 years.

It may be one of the rare instances where blockchains might be useful!

In no way does this help.

It would also make it easy to harass people by fake notifications. Blocks often happen for a reason.

Let's allow people you've blocked to anonymously send you "U HAZ AIDS" friendly notifications, what could possibly go wrong.

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