Licensing News

Investigator badges are when, not if

Security Industry Authority licences for private investigators (PI’s) are a matter of when, not if, the Home Office has said.

Replying after a consultation on whether to regulate PIs the Government reports “overwhelming support from respondents for licensing of private investigators and precognition agents”.

The Home office proposes licensing with competency criteria. The other three options had been to do nothing; some alternative to regulation; and licensing with no competency criteria, which did however find some favour, at least as a first step, from those answering the consultation.

Among those responding to the consultation - which dates from August 2007 - the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) supported licensing. It spoke of UK PIs trading in unlawfully acquired data, or in the agency’s words, a ‘rogue element regularly breach the requirements of the Data Protection Act’.

‘Rogue element’

However a stumbling block may come in what SOCA said next - “Many of the rogue element have left the service of their previous employers (police or military) as a result of professional standards issues which would not come to light as a result of routine criminal record checks.”

This would appear to beg the question how ‘rogues’ will be denied a licence. And as the Home Office reply says, these dealers in illegally-acquired information are ‘supported in their activities by key enablers’.

The Information Commissioner, who was among those taking part in the consultation, has highlighted the powerful interests - the national press, councils and insurers - that do seek personal information. Nor does the document go into quite how a regulator would investigate pretexting or ‘blagging’ - PIs or others calling a company purporting to be someone else to access information, naturally a covert business.

However, few if any replying to the consultation suggested anything but SIA licensing. Some, like the corporate investigators Kroll, argued that only corporate licensing, not individual badging, was workable.

What training?

One stumbling block appears to be what to train people in, and how to examine them, for the PI badge.

One respondent spoke of ‘more than overkill’ to require people with police or other experience to be taught for an exam by someone with less experience.

Control Risks pointed to the costs and added that given the diverse nature of investigations, ‘training cannot be prescribed in a meaningful manner’.

Kroll, too, stressed its internal training and doubted the good of external training for a licence.

The Home Office conclude: “We recognise, however, that the SIA’s role must be carefully defined so that it adds value, in terms of its role in helping safeguard the private security industry from criminality and raising standards generally. It is however not the SIA’s job to ensure an individual’s fitness for business needs.”

Hit by expense

Some felt that sole practitioners would be hit by the expense and time of getting a badge and would shut up shop. But as the document ended, there is ‘still a lot of preparatory work to be done on the details’. Next step is an impact assessment.

As a sign of how wide and international the badging could be, those replying to the consultation included corporate investigators such as Risk Advisory Group and Carratu International; the NHS Fraud Counter and Security Management; the International Kommission der Detektiv-Verbands; Student Loans Company; and auditors Ernst & Young.

You can download the 30-page Home Office document form the SIA website: www.the-sia.org.uk

Original article appeared in Professional Security magazine, June 2008 issue. Displayed with permission.