Police Stop Dispatching Data on AIDS Patients : Law enforcement: The Bay Area force had been sending information about infected people to officers and medics responding to emergency calls.

In the wake of criticism by civil rights and AIDS action groups, a Bay Area police department has temporarily halted its practice of dispatching information about AIDS-infected people to officers and medics responding to emergency calls.

In addition, police in Union City say they are considering eliminating from their computer the addresses of residents whom they know to be infected with the AIDS virus.

The issues, they say, will be resolved after an Aug. 2 meeting with officials of the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California and the AIDS Project of the East Bay, who complained bitterly when the department’s practices came to light last week.

Union City police say their dispatching computer keeps tabs of the addresses of residents who have voluntarily informed them that they carry the human immunodeficiency virus. Last month, medical information concerning one such address was broadcast over the department’s radio frequency--which is available to the public--when officers were dispatched to investigate a disturbance.

A local newspaper reported on the department’s practice after one of its reporters overheard the radio transmission.

Acting Police Chief Connie Van Putten said Tuesday that the department’s computer system is designed to provide many types of information to officers in the field--ranging from whether a business is licensed to sell hazardous chemicals to the number of false alarms at residences.

“When we find out via the person themselves that they have AIDS, the notation may be (also) made in the computer,” Van Putten said.

Such information, she said, has been disseminated to officers dispatched to calls concerning fights and assaults “where we know somebody has been cut (and) there’s a safety issue to the officer.”

“It doesn’t change our response at all,” she said. But it’s one more piece of information that is given to officers for additional safety, she said.

Only four references to AIDS are contained in the more than 500 addresses currently recorded in the department’s computer, according to Van Putten. But as a result of the outcry, she said, department officials have agreed to halt the broadcast of AIDS information at least until the Aug. 2 meeting.

The move was called a good sign by ACLU staff attorney Matthew A. Coles, who says that the computer list is worthless to police--since it includes only a small percentage of Union City’s HIV-infected residents--and dangerous to public health.

“Public health authorities throughout California have complained for years that the greatest single obstacle to stopping the spread of AIDS is the fear HIV-infected people have that the government will keep files on them and tell others about their condition,” said Coles. “The damage when a department like Union City’s thoughtlessly . . . keeps a list and broadcasts the (addresses) on an open-band radio is incalculable.”

Coles said he believes the practice is also illegal under the right-to-privacy provisions of both the state and federal constitutions.

Susan Black, director of public policy for Alameda County’s AIDS services division, said Tuesday that her office is drafting a letter to Union City police to advise them of the negative effect of their list.

“Any time there’s any talk of a list of the HIV-infected, people go underground and don’t get the help they need,” she said.

Moreover, she added, Union City officers might tend to discriminate against known AIDS sufferers while having “a false sense of security” when responding to other calls.