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Is it legal to hire a Private
Investigation Agency?
19th July 2011
It has been impossible to ignore recent events
surrounding the phone hacking tactics employed
by the staff at the the News Of The World. Their
actions led to the closure of the company that
ran the paper and criminal prosecutions are
expected for those at the centre of the scandal.
As the story emerged it became clear that
certain misdeeds had taken place, and many
Private Investigators have been
implicated as being complicit with those now
facing prosecution. But the questions that come
from this are firstly, what did those Private
Investigators actually do; secondly, how does
this effect those people wishing to employ the
services of a company like ours and finally, do
we work in the same illegal ways as those about
to face charges in the scandal?
What the investigators did was gain access to
the call records and voicemail of various
celebrities and members of the Royal Family. To
achieve this, they 'hacked' the numeric pass
codes securing the voicemail boxes of those
celebrities and 'blagged' their way through data
protection security with the carrier companies
to obtain call logs etc. This type of offense is
in breach of the Data Protection legislation, an
area of law policed in part by the ICO
(Information Commissioners Office). It is the
ICO who led the investigation into the News of
the World and sought the prosecution of those
offenders against whom evidence could be found -
Many of these offenders were private
investigators.
But why, when one could argue that by their very
nature the services of a Private Investigation
agency are intrusive and a breach of someone's
privacy, are those investigators being
prosecuted now? After all, we are secretly
following people around taking pictures of them
without their consent. The difference lies in
the way that we obtain out
intelligence, not the intelligence itself. To
explain; much like paparazzi, we only gather
data on someone as it presents itself in a
public arena. For example, if you are in a
public park we can take pictures of you to our
hearts content provided we are not harassing you
by doing it. If however, you lock yourself away
in a hotel room and actively seek to guard your
privacy, we have to respect that privacy and any
intelligence gathered in this case would be
deemed as having been obtained illegally. What
the investigators did for the News of the World
went way beyond Private Investigation as
described above and can be more likened to
espionage. This, twinned with the fact that they
used the intelligence they gathered for harm and
financial gain, only condemned them further.
So, going forward, how does this effect the
customers of the Private Investigation agencies?
In short, if you are using a reputable company
like Black Cat Investigations, it doesn't. This
is simply because we NEVER employ methods to
achieve our objectives that contravene current
UK law. As a professional Private Investigation
Agency, we work hard with our clients to ensure
that they achieve their objectives using
acceptable and legal methods and steer them in a
direction that draws them away from illegal
practices. As a registered member of the ICO, we
have made a commitment to avoid the sort of
working practices that may see those at the
centre of the phone hacking scandal imprisoned.
This means that as our client, you are protected
at all times and never need worry that the next
person to appear in the press is you!
To conclude, working with us is safe, legal and
effective.
Black Cat Investigations
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