The Expert Podcast

So today we're going to talk about what can a private investigator do. This is one of the top questions we get as a licensed private investigative agency of what things can you do. Can you carry a gun? Can you hack people? Can you put GPS on people? Can you arrest people? Can you secretly record conversations? What are the requirements and restrictions on being a private investigator? Let's take a look.

So the first question is most common: can you carry a gun as a private investigator? Well, firearm procedures vary slightly from one state to another, but in most cases private investigators are allowed to carry firearms. However, it's usually controlled and regulated by the licensing division of that state. Private investigators are licensed at the state level. Each state has a requirement for licensing a private investigator.

Most states require if you're a private investigator and you want to carry a gun, you have to have whatever firearm carry permit exists in that state. Sometimes it's a CCW concealed carry weapons permit, sometimes it's an LTC license to carry. So most states require at least that you have the proper concealed carry permit that any other civilian would have - any other private citizen would have that permit if you want to carry a gun as a private investigator.

Many states on top of that require you to have an enhanced weapons carry permit if you are a private investigator. As an example, Florida has a requirement - this is a good example - that if you are a licensed private investigator you would have what's called a C license, a class C license or a class A license for an agency. If you want to carry a gun, you also have to have a class G firearms permit, firearms license that's different from the regular state concealed carry license that civilians have.

The reason why they want you to have that additional license is because if you are a private investigator and you're on the job working with a gun, it's more likely you're going to have to use that gun, more likely than just an average person walking down the street or going to Walmart with a gun. Chances are you're not going to be in a situation you need to use that gun. If you are a licensed private investigator, you're probably going to be in more situations where that gun or that firearm maybe need to be used. So they're gonna require that you have that G license to give you more training about the use of dangerous weapons, the use of deadly force when it's allowed, when it's not allowed, and more training on the use.

The Florida G license requires an annual training and qualification. You have to go to a certain type of firearm instructor and go through a shooting course where you demonstrate marksmanship behind cover, movement, distances, and you have to qualify with a certain score of your marksmanship and your firearms use. You have to demonstrate you know the laws regarding the use of force. You have to do that every year and you have to get your G license qualification signed each year by a qualified instructor. That's different from a private citizen who has a concealed carry permit - they get their concealed carry permit once and they never have to update it ever again. They might have to renew it every few years, but there's no requirement for a qualification or shooting demonstration.

Many states have something similar if you're going to carry a gun - it's an enhanced level. In fact, another practical requirement is if you're carrying a firearm as a private investigator, your insurance that you have will also reflect armed versus unarmed security and the insurance is going to be a lot higher premium and they might require additional training as well.

Number two is can you secretly record somebody as a private investigator? Well, not only are the rules for a private investigator the same as a private citizen, in some cases the rules are more restrictive. Let's talk about that. Recording a conversation or recording audio of a person talking as a private investigator is very carefully regulated. Every state has certain laws requiring it to be a one-party or two-party state.

What that means is a one-party state means if two people are talking and one of them gives permission they can record the conversation. So if I were talking to you on the phone and I had a tape recorder and I pushed record and I recorded our conversation, as long as I was a party to the conversation I can record you without having to tell you. It's pretty rare, but most states or some states allow that. Most states are what's called a two-party requirement meaning that if I'm talking to you on the phone and I want to record it, I have to get your permission as well. Both of us have to agree for the recording.

That's why when you call some customer service company departments they'll tell you "we're recording this call for customer service or quality control" or whatever they say, because that's a two-party state and most national companies defer to the lowest common denominator. So they're gonna assume that you're in a two-party state and they're gonna let you know.

So what does that mean for a private investigator? Well, even a one-party state, if there's two people talking and you're recording them remotely, that's not gonna fly. It's almost impossible that you are legally allowed to record two people talking without either one of them giving you permission. This not only goes for electronic conversations - phone or radio - it also is in person, meaning that if two people are talking even in public it may not be legal to record them.

In addition, it's in most cases illegal to artificially enhance or amplify a conversation. What that means is if two people are talking 100 yards away and you have one of those big dishes or microphone that you can hear far away, that's an artificial enhancement of the conversation which is going to be regulated at the state level. Most states won't allow that. Some states allow you to listen to it and make notes but not record it. So if you are a private investigator you need to know the laws of the state that you're in. If you are a client of an investigator, make sure you know what your investigator is doing to ensure that they're following the law.

Number three is can an investigator track you with GPS? The short answer is likely not. Now an investigator can do surveillance - they can physically follow you and watch you. If you're driving around the city and making stops and going to stores and a private investigator can follow you and monitor your activity, record your destinations, record your route, they can do that - that's almost always legal.

What they can't do is slap a GPS on your car and sit at home and watch you on a map. That's usually illegal in most states. In fact, even if the vehicle is owned by the client - so let's say it's a divorce case, husband and wife, the wife wants to know where the husband's going, the car is registered in both names or even just in the wife's name - it's probably not proper to slap a GPS on the car without the person knowing it that's driving it, especially when that car is used on an everyday basis by that person.

Now keep in mind, we're not attorneys, we're not giving you legal advice - you want to get good legal advice before you do this. But there's a difference between you as a vehicle owner just giving your car to a random person to use for running errands - you can probably track your car in that scenario - but if it's a spouse, intimate partner, somebody that uses that car every day like it's their car, they probably have an expectation of privacy that someone's not snooping where they're going. It's a gray area, but there have been many cases we've seen where that's been determined to not be allowed. So again, we're not attorneys, we're not giving you a legal opinion, we're telling you what we've seen in cases.

Another question that comes up a lot for private investigators is can you track trace assets - can you find hidden assets? And the answer is yes, that's something investigator can do and in many cases does do - find hidden assets, find bank accounts that are hidden, find real estate that's hidden. A lot of times assets are hidden in the name of somebody else. People try to put a car in somebody's name or hide a bank account somebody's name. That's something investigators do all the time - very common investigative case.

Now there's a one little catch to that - the method that's used to find those assets is important. There are things that are legal to do and they're things that are illegal to do. For example, if I wanted to find a bank account of a person, I would not be allowed to hack into their email to find their bank account. I would not be able to hack into their bank login to get their balance - that's illegal. There are legal methods to do it which are now analytics, forensics, document research, other types of financial institution investigation that are legal.

So it's not so much that the type of research is illegal, it's how it's done and sometimes why it's done. If you're doing an investigation to harass somebody or for identity theft, doesn't matter how you do it - even if the method is legal, the reason for doing it is illegal. So asset searches are very common.

That gets me to the next question: is can you hack into somebody's computer, phone, email, voicemail, login, Facebook? And answer is no. Hacking or illegally encroaching upon any online electronic account is actually governed under federal law. There are illegal wiretapping laws in computer access and breach laws. And if any person - an investigator or a private citizen - improperly accesses another person's private account using, you know, hacking or stealing emails or stealing logins, even if you know the password and you log in improperly when you're not supposed to, it's probably going to be determined to be improper. Nobody can do that unless you have a warrant or search warrant or a subpoena from a court - it's going to be illegal.

Another question that comes up a lot is can you arrest somebody - can a private investigator perform an arrest detention of a person, can you slap handcuffs on somebody? Well, yes and no. A private investigator in almost every case has no more powers of arrest than a private citizen to do a citizen's arrest in most cases. So start with that knowledge - either you as a private investigator or if you are a client of a private investigator, they can't go round somebody up and slap the cuffs on him and throw him in the trunk of a car unless that would be allowed by a private citizen that witnessed a crime and did a citizen's arrest. Sometimes that's legal.

Now in some other specific instances, a private investigator who is acting as a security guard who has security guard credentials can do some types of arrests for things like shoplifting or if they see a crime or if they're guarding some type of infrastructure they may be able to do an arrest. There's a couple states that have additional arrest powers for investigators as part of their everyday duties, but for the most part the same as a normal civilian type person.

Now that gets to another question - it's related to another question - what about surveillance? Can you do surveillance? Can you follow somebody? Well, the answer normally is yes, you can follow somebody to determine their whereabouts, activities, habits, judgment, reputation, whatever it is you're trying to determine. However, there's a fine line between that and stalking. If as an investigator you are performing surveillance in a way that's designed to intentionally be discovered, now you're talking about stalking.

Surveillance should be done as a covert activity. You don't want the person to see you. You don't want your presence to change their activity. You're not trying to harass them. You're not trying to make them nervous to do something wrong. You're just trying to observe con without any observation. You're trying to be inconspicuous so that person does what they normally would do without you seeing them.

This is an important thing to know is because in some cases the client says "look, I want you to do surveillance but I want you to let them know they're being followed because I want them to be scared of me, I want them to know that I'm on to them." That's not surveillance - now you're talking harassment or stalking. It's another reason why of all the different types of investigation, technically you as a client could probably do everything yourself - you could do an asset search, you can do many other types of investigation - but it's highly discouraged for a client to do their own surveillance because if you are discovered doing surveillance it's very easy for that to be construed as stalking or harassment or other types of improper contact and you can easily get a restraining order put on you for doing that. It's going to make you look bad in whatever legal case you're doing.

Now that brings me to another question - everybody has watched investigator shows: Rockford Files, Magnum PI, Miami Vice (which is kind of a cop show), Remington Steel, Moonlighting - all the private investigator shows have at least one car chase in it. So the question is can you chase somebody? Can you speed? Can you do things to enhance your abilities as an investigator? The answer is no. As a private investigator you have to follow all the same laws that a private person does. You can't speed, can't blow through red lights, you can't, you know, ignore traffic laws. You have to do it in a way that still follows the same laws.

Now that brings me to another question - what about are there any other laws that come into play that could interfere with an investigator's work? Well, one is surveillance in private areas. So let's say somebody's inside their house - can you look in the window to see what they're doing? Well, if they have a big picture window in the front of their house and they're just standing in the middle of their living room doing something with the lights on and it's a big window and anybody can see from the street, probably okay there.

If it's a back bedroom window where the drapes are partially closed and you creep up and peek through the crack, that's probably not allowed even if you could see the person had an expectation that nobody's going to be looking at them because first of all you trespass on their property - you can't just go walking on people's property. Second of all, they took some effort to conceal themselves by closing the blinds even if not all the way. Even if you used binoculars or a telescope from down the street to peek through their window, that's probably not legal because it's not a normal observable activity from a normal person's perspective.

Another potential legal process that comes up a lot with investigators is what's called a trash pull. Now let me just say this - a trash pull is an extremely valuable investigative tool. If you're a private investigator and you can get access to what's in somebody's discarded garbage or trash, there's all kind of valuable things here. Now there's some downsides - first of all you have to go in their trash and it's sometimes disgusting and there's eggshells and rotted meat or whatever's in there - but there might be important papers or receipts or bank statements or notes or phone bills that are in there that will help your case.

But you can't go up into somebody's yard and pull it from their shed. You have to do use what's called cartilage laws. Cartilage is when the trash is officially put out as trash - when it's out by the street, when it's put out for the trash guy. Now in most cases it's legal to take it's a gray area. What if it's in the front of the house on the driveway up against the garage door? Probably not because now you have to trespass on their property and who knows if it was ready to get put out. Sometimes people put something in their trash can that they're going to take out later - they just chucked it there for now or they remembered "oh I forgot to take out this out of my trash before I put it out for the garbage person." So you have to make sure it's literally out discarded for trash. It's a gray area but it's important to be aware of those as a investigative asset.

Last but not least, can you do an interrogation? Well, yes and no. You can't hold somebody where they're not free to leave to demand answers from them, but you can do what's called a witness interview. You can ask anybody questions that you want. The other good thing about an investigator is you do not have to advise them of their rights - they don't have the right to remain silent, you don't have to tell them that you're not police officer, you're not law enforcement. You can call up somebody, go to where they are and say "hey look, you know what, can you tell me about this? I'm, I'm, I have some questions."

Now you have to make sure that that conversation doesn't break any other laws. For example, if that person is represented by an attorney and you're working for that attorney or for a client, now you might be breaking the rules of talking to a represented party. So if you're involved in a lawsuit, a dispute and both people have lawyers that represents them in that lawsuit and you are hired by the lawyer to go talk to that person, it's a gray area - they probably should be represented by their attorney. So you have to make sure you're getting good legal advice about when it's appropriate to do that.

Can you misrepresent yourself? Can you tell them you're somebody else, make up a fake name or do what's called pretexting? In most cases you can do some kind of pre-texting to have a conversation. However, you cannot use pre-texting to get private information like bank account information or protected information on a person. You can't tell somebody that you are the phone company in order to get their account number. You can't tell them that you are from the water bureau in order to let them talk to you about, you know, if they're going to sell their house, that kind of thing. So pre-texting is covered under a federal law called the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLB). You have to make sure you're following those laws for pretexting.

But witness interviews is an extremely valuable tool to get information just in conversation and a good investigator can strike up conversations with potential witnesses or people that know about a witness to find out activities, phone numbers, that kind of a thing.

And this is related to the last thing we'll talk about in this video is that of can a private investigator carry a badge - can they flash a badge? Well, in almost every state private investigators have a license and they have an ID card or some other credential, but it's not a metal badge - it doesn't even look like one. The licensing bureaus of all the states intentionally make sure that the credential is not representative or similar to any law enforcement badge. It doesn't look like a police badge or sheriff's badge. They don't want the public confused about if somebody's a private investigator or a police officer.

And that's another reason why even though old movies you'd hear the word "private detective," almost all states now call it a private investigator. They don't use the word detective because detective sounds too much like police, official government agent, and they do not want private investigators to be even accidentally perceived to be police. They wanted to know that it's a private firm, it's a private company, just like going into, you know, AT&T store - it's just a company. Now you have a license and some extra authority, but you're not the police. You don't have any rights to demand a person do something, and even as a private investigator you have to really go out of your way to make sure that nobody thinks you are part of the government because if you do you're going to get in trouble.

So those are some common questions about private investigating and what you can and can't do. If you do have other questions go ahead and put them in the comments or let us know and we'll include those in the next video and we're glad to share this information with you.