Photo: By Stefan Krause – License: FAL
Hollywood and high-profile investigative misconduct may contribute to the stereotype of the private investigator as shady and unprincipled…but we’re also to blame.
The question is: What are we going to do about it?
I’ve long been fascinated with how people perceive private investigators. So I did a poll…by no means a scientific study, but the results were pretty dismal. You can read the post here: What is the Perception of a Private Investigator? It Kind of Sucks!
Biggest shocker: Of more than 900 people polled, 20 percent think that private investigators never abide by the law.
While “resourceful” was the term chosen as the best term to describe a private investigator, “shady” came in second. “Law abiding” and “honest” were next to last…right after “unprincipled.”
No matter which way you slice it, private investigators have an image problem.
The Reaction
The post provoked a lively and varied response from the investigative community.
One investigator commented that “everybody breaks the law” and he “revels in the common misconceptions,” and “capitalize(s) on them.”
The majority of investigators, however, felt that we needed to do something to give the business a sense of professionalism. They discussed how the industry should have more oversight, better education, and stricter requirements to become a private investigator—as part of the effort to increase the collective perception.
[quote align=”center” color=”#999999″]A bad perception hurts us all. If you think that it doesn’t, you’re kidding yourself.[/quote]
In my opinion, it’s one thing to have some general misconceptions about our business, but it’s an entirely different thing if the misconception is that we routinely break the law, do things underhandedly, or work in an ethical grey area.
While we can all agree that clients don’t need to know every last detail about the mechanics of how we do things or acquire information, it’s important that clients know that we gather information legitimately and ethically and that we operate by a strict professional code.
A bad perception hurts us all. If you think that it doesn’t, you’re kidding yourself.
It’s not just in the United States either. A few days ago, an investigator in Spain told me that she avoids using the term private investigator when meeting with clients.
That was before one of the biggest investigative firms in Spain, Metodo 3, got mixed up in a massive political spying scandal. They were apparently telling anyone who would listen that they had access to information that nobody else had…but they apparently didn’t come by it honestly.
No Fault But Our Own
Movies and TV have certainly not done us any favors.
Of course, it’s easy to blame Hollywood for how people view our profession, but I think the biggest problem is the investigators themselves.
Maybe I’m missing something, but the only time I see private investigators in the news is when they get raided, indicted for bribing officials, sent to jail for tapping phones, setting up dirty DUIs or illegally accessing confidential information.
So how do we go about improving the perception?
Continuing Education Requirements
Several states require that private investigators complete a continuing education course every year, but most states don’t.
Revolutions in technology and computing have turned the investigative business upside down. You no longer need to be in the CIA to have access to secret recording devices, spyware, or vehicle tracking devices.
These days, you can find more information about a person in ten minutes behind a computer than in days or weeks of investigation using standard methods of as little as 15 years ago.
It’s vital to keep up with the newest investigative techniques and technologies, as well as a host of ever-changing state and federal regulations. There are more legalities to understand than ever before, from Gramm-Leach-Bliley and the Fair Credit Reporting Act to changes in GPS tracking laws, “pretexting” and other privacy issues. Knowing and abiding by these often complex rules is essential to maintaining a high level of professionalism.
Professional Standards
Ask ten investigators about the legality of pretexting, or if you can legally do a bank account search on any person. I bet you’ll get quite a range of answers.
There’s a vast grey area between right and wrong, legal and illegal, ethical and unethical. The problem is that many people don’t know where that grey area begins and where it ends.
Here’s a potential remedy: The investigations field needs a comprehensive list of professional and ethical standards as well as legal and ethical guidelines (regarding things such as GPS tracking, bank account searches, pretexting and privacy issues regarding surveillance).
Other industries outline and adhere to such professional standards, and while some folks may choose not to follow them, they serve to draw a line in the sand and to color some of those grey areas in starker blacks and whites. And that makes the choice to step over the line all the more precipitous.
This could go a long way in creating consistency across the entire industry—consistency which the field so desperately lacks right now. Set down our principles in bold print, and it’ll be all the harder to accuse us of not having any.
Regulatory Oversight
Currently, 45 states have statewide licensing requirements for private investigators. According to the Mechanics Group, 12 of those 45 states require absolutely no investigative experience to obtain a private investigator’s license.
The exam to obtain my Certified Fraud Examiner designation was far more grueling than my New York investigator’s license. To maintain my CFE designation, not only do I have to complete 20 hours of continuing education per year, but I have to confirm that I haven’t been convicted of any crimes.
My private investigator’s license requires little more than sending in some money and checking a few boxes.
Finding some common ground with licensing standards, minimum qualifications, and renewal would go a long way toward creating a more professional standard of conduct.
(Hey, Alabama, Alaska, Mississippi, South Dakota and Wyoming! Seriously? No licensing requirements?)
Educating Clients
I spend more time than I would like to admit trying to educate clients about what we can legally, ethically and realistically accomplish.
Why? Because most people have a completely warped sense of what an investigator does.
A few months ago, a potential client was incensed that I wasn’t able to check his future wife’s bank account balance. “Aren’t you a private investigator?” he asked me. (Last time I checked, I was.)
An educated client is a more valuable client. If clients know the legal and ethical boundaries, understand what you can realistically accomplish, and are willing to pay a premium for the knowledge and information that you can provide, you won’t need to pretend that you’ve got magic beans, pixie dust, and a stable of unicorns.
As an industry, we love keeping our secrets tight to the vest and our magic potions to ourselves, but we need to do a better job of educating clients about the work we do, the boundaries that exist, and the legal and ethical implications.
Why Should We Change?
Am I overreacting? Maybe.
But I don’t see any other choice but to do something about it.
The alternative may be to do nothing. But to me, that has some dire consequences.
How many more newsworthy incidents of investigative malfeasance (like Hewlett-Packard, News of the World, Rebecca Schaffer, Anthony Pellicano or Christopher Butler) can our industry survive? It only takes a few high-profile miscreants to mess it up for us all.
I think we all have a duty to raise the standards of our business.
To act with the highest possible degree of ethical conduct and to give our industry a greater sense of professionalism, we must rise above the clichés and perceptions.
Who knows … we may all be better off for doing so.
I’ve said my piece, what do you think? Do you think we need to change the perception of people? If so, what is the most effective way to go about it?
Brian Willingham is a New York private investigator, Certified Fraud Examiner, and founder of Diligentia Group