DC to Start Tracking Names of the HIV Positive

Starting this month the DC Department of Health will introduce a new system of tracking the names of those who test positive for HIV. I am of two minds about this. On the one hand, it seems like an invasion of privacy. But on the other hand, critics of the anonymous system that has been in place for 25 years blame that approach for letting AIDS mushroom into a full-blown epidemic by not taking a traditional infectious disease control approach, which would have informed the sexual partners of someone who is HIV+ that they have been exposed, thereby, theoretically, stopping the disease from spreading further.

This poses the classic question: what is the limit of privacy when harm to others may be involved? I personally would like to know if my sexual partner had HIV, as you can't rely on people being completely honest about things like that, especially when it might involving admitting to taboo gay sex. One third of the new cases of HIV in the District are heterosexual African-American or Latino women whose boyfriends are likely on the "down low" and infect them. DC has the highest rate of HIV in the nation.