MOBILE, Ala. (WALA) – For the past couple of weeks, police and other first responders in Alabama have gotten a heads-up if they get dispatched to homes where someone has tested positive for the novel coronavirus.

Emergency communications officials maintain that it is a reasonable precaution to help keep police, firefighters and recue workers safe. But patient privacy advocates have raised alarm.

“I don’t make any apologies for it,” said Charlie McNichol, director of the Mobile County Emergency Communications District. “As administrators and folks who run these type organizations, it’s our responsibility to try to help protect the first responders. And we’re cognizant of the fact that there could be some sort of concern, but I would hope that people would also be concerned for the first responders.”

McNichol said his counterpart in Baldwin County, Joby Smith, raised the possibility after learning Florida was doing it. Massachusetts has a similar policy.

McNichol, the president of the Alabama Association of Emergency Communications Districts, took the idea to the 911 system statewide. Lawyers for the 911 system worked with attorneys for the Alabama Department of Public Health to come up with a protocol that McNichol said does not violate federal privacy laws.

“They don’t give out the person’s name or age or anything like that – just the address,” he told FOX10 News. “We file that in the CAD (Computer Aided Dispatch) system.”

But Dr. Deborah Peel, a psychiatrist who founded an organization called Patient Privacy Rights, said sharing the information is more than just an invasion – it gives police and firefighters a false sense of security since community transmission already is widespread.

“It’s too late for that. It doesn’t many any sense,” she said. “We’re in an extremely cataclysmic situation. We’re in such bad shape. … They need to approach everyone as if they have it. That’s the only way to protect them.”

McNichol said the notification promotes “heightened awareness.” And he said the information is stored in a system that already contains sensitive information that is not available to the public.

“Where we’re putting it is secure anyway,” he said.

McNichol said 911 operators also have added a screening question to find out of people at a place where first responders are headed have experienced symptoms – whether they’ve been tested or not. That came into place recently when a Mobile police officer learned that someone at a house where he was responding to a car break-in previously had the coronavirus but had recovered.

“So, that’s a great example,” he said.