This page is a walk-through of forum settings to help you avoid disclosing personal information by accident, and maintain your privacy and confidentiality.

To participate in the forums you must have a valid email address and choose a user name.

• Your email address will be known to the forum staff (moderators) but need not be shared with other members.
• Your email address will never be shared with the public.
• Your user name can be anything you like - it need not be your real name.

It is therefore possible to use the forums and keep your email private (except from form staff) and not reveal your name or any other personal information.

The UK CAB website does not mention HIV in large letters, include medical or drug pictures in its design, or include HIV in its web address. Emails from the forum come from 'UKCAB' or 'United Kingdom Community Advisory Board'.

But...information is displayed on the screen via a web browser:

• If you step away from the screen, someone else may look at the webpage you are viewing.
• If you don't log out, someone may come along and be able to view UK CAB webpages which you have viewed or contributed to.

For complete confidentiality, always log out and always close your browser when you step away from your PC.

Posts

It is easy to get comfortable and post something that identifies you. If you have done this and want to remove the information, get in touch. Remember, posts can be printed.

Note: You get an hour to edit posts.

Personal messages

These are completely private (not even forum staff can see them) but like other forum content, they can be printed. For complete privacy, be cautious about sharing personal information - especially date of birth, email addresses and name - via personal messages.

Note: like emails, once sent, personal messages cannot be retracted.

Firstly, in your profile, make sure the following settings are checked/unchecked:

Account settings

Make sure your name doesn't reveal who you are. Your name - the name people will see on the screen - will be set to Firstname Lastname eg John Smith. You can change your name to something less personal - anything you like.

Note: you can't change your user name.

Make sure the box next to 'Hide email address from public?' is checked (this is the standard setting). For complete privacy make sure you also uncheck the box 'Show others your online status?'

Personal details

For complete privacy and confidentiality, don't have a personal picture or choose one of the symbols on offer (no picture is the standard setting).

For complete privacy and confidentiality, leave all the optional personal information blank.

Note: Personal text, custom title and signature can be used to personalise your posts - what you put here will be displayed on every post to logged-in members.

If in doubt, leave it out! - Log out and close your browser.

If your question is not answered here:

• try looking in the Using the forum board
• post your question in Help questions and answers board

Help navigation:

• Main menu explained
• Board index explained
• Your profile
• Personal messages
• Posting on a board
• Searching the forum
• Notifications - getting messages by email
• Quick guide - making the forum work for you