Regulation of Private Investigators
The Home Affairs Committee report into Private Investigators is now available from
http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/home-affairs-committee/publications/
The main recommendations are:
– Increased penalties for DPA section 55 offences. Confiscation orders where a person is convicted of data and privacy offences and the information has been sold for profit.
– s55 DPA criminal record to disqualify individuals from operating as private investigators.
– Minimum one year between retiring from the police force and working in private investigation.
– ‘Private Investigator’ should be a protected title – as in the case of ‘social worker’ – so that nobody can use the term to describe themselves without being subject to regulation. (A point suggested to the Committee by the Association of Fraud Investigators).
– a two tier system of licensing of private investigators and private investigation companies, and registration of in-house investigators working for regulated businesses such as solicitors and insurance companies.
– Code of conduct for investigators which would also apply to
sub-contracted and part-time investigators, and to in-house investigators.
– Government to consider cost benefit of granting increased access to prescribed data.
– Core of training regime to be knowledge of the yet to be written Code of Conduct and the legal constraints that govern the industry.
– Regime to be implemented by the end of 2013
Users of Professional Investigative Services including members of the public, legal profession, business and corporate clients, are able to select a credible Professional Investigator who is recognized as a “professional” and as such is a member of an established and approved professional association such as The World Association of Professional Investigators (WAPI).