Should the Geek Squad need private-investigator licenses?
A Texas law, now being challenged in court, says computer technicians could need PI licenses. What do you think of the case?
Comment
Email
RSS
DiggOk how bout myself? I’m certified in computer forensics by several reputable institutions (none include college) which is recognized by the Federal Government in court. So is the stat of TX saying what’s good enough for the feds isnt for us? Last I checked a state could NOT override the feds unless they leave the union which TX can, but hasnt as of right now. So the bottom like is this, the PI’s dont like us REAL GEEKS because we could do a 1000 time better job than most of them ever could. The day of “tailing” a vehicle, going through the trashcan for a scrap of paper with a number, or even taking 35mm photos etc are OVER! Technology is now king, the bottom line is everything about you is typically on a computer now somewhere, usually your own. The PI’s lack the ability to get it, so they want the rest of us to work for it. Not our fault those PI’s chose to be old school!!! Anyway, I’ll take on the state with my credentials any day, TX cannot override the feds for us who hold recognized computer forensics certs. PERIOD! Chew on that Mr. Driver!
But what constitutes an “investigation”? I work for a large company. We have our own internal investigations department. We may get requests from Legal asking for help gathering data for a lawsuit, from Audit asking for help investigating internal fraud or theft, from Human Resources asking for help about a sexually explicit email, or even just managers alleging someone was surfing for porn on company computers.
All of these cases require an “investigation” into data that can reside in a variety of places. An the findings could potentially result in a criminal or civil case. But the bottom line is that all my work is done internally on company-owned systems.
Most computer tech just fix them , the only investigating is to see what caused the failure. Computer forensics is another field all together.
seems like a pretty clear line if your fixing it you do not need a pi license , if your doing computer forensics to determine if a crime has been committed then you most likely do need a PI license
The Texas board is merely requiring investigators who do investigation of computers to get a license. They are not requiring pc repair persons to get a license. Yes there probably needs to be some clarification as with all new laws.
Your title misleads, and your subtitle misleads. Finally towards the end, the reader realizes that computer repair people aren’t being targeted but people who are doing forensic work with computers. I suspect they should be regulated.
I was a manager of contracts and royalties for Pioneer. Part of my regular
accounting duties was to review computer files of accounting information to
look for abnormalities, trends and the like. By the broad definition being
used I would have needed a PI license. Every CPA and CFO and most general
accounting staff members who prepare statistics for business owners, IRS,
state tax personnel would all be required to have the PI license.sk all
businesses to stop giving the state information until the state issues every
one of the individual employees PI licenses and challenge every fact brought
in by the coroner and other experts if they do not have a PI license.The
courts would soon modify the bill and the power to wield that law because it
was a threat to the existance of the established court system and lawyer
click.
I would be concerned that the Criminal Justice courses are correctly suited for people who deal in the computer industry that just want to fix a computer problem and not solve a crime. As a person who has been in the computer field for 20 years I have enough work between solving computer problems and keeping up with my computer training and all the new things I need to keep up with advances in the computer field.
What about government agencies and those who do the same work. Will they need additional training in Criminal Justice to fix a computer or printer problem?
I guess we will have to have the helpdesk people in India who troubleshoot computer problems get a PI license as well.
I think this law is a great idea. It provides a level of security for people out there who may need computer related services, but don’t know who they are trusting by giving access to their PCs. Having a license obligates the service provider to act in a certain manner when dealing with private information. If a provider has their license revoked for not following the guildelines, then they can no longer do business. This is a much needed protection for everyone/
Another wonderful example of the
Texas PSB making a mountain out of a
molehill.If they can’t find a problem,
they will create one.This organization
really needs to be abolished.
I own a computer engineering company in Texas. I am very concerned with this law for several reasons. I have had customers whose hard drives on their servers failed, through diligent work we were able to retrieve many or all files. Could this retrevial and data integrety analasis be considered illegal? My second concern, two years ago we worked with the FBI regarding a child preditor. The FBI said to us after the case solved and the person was arrested that if we ever saw information that was illegal in nature it was our duty to report it to the FBI. Does the FBI truph this law? I have heard may repair techs report Child Porn, does this mean what they find is not submissable in court? If so the Center for missing and exploited children need to be all over this.
Texas Private Security Board needs to be abolished. Our constitution does not permit anyone but lawmakers to impose law on us.
We need a balance between expectations of privacy and real life practicality.
Laws such as this one wreck havoc on the practical side of things and have little benefit.
A quick course in privacy and a background check for techs should be enough.
If you are afraid of personal information being accessed, fix your own computer or format the hard drive before taking it for repair. You will lose data but at least no one can see private data
Nothing is private on your work computer per the supreme court so that is non issue here. If you want privacy, use your own pc
If a tech finds illegal data on a pc, he should contact law enforcement and let them do there job.
I would license forensic specialists before permitting them to testify in court. But this should be to document their technical skill set.
More attention needs to be paid to valid security problems.
In the past, I have contracted with various companies as a software/database developer and have seen many cases where personal data was wide open to almost any one. Worse, many companies have so many holes in their security that any reasonable proficient hacker could access the data. At the same time, management has instituted burdensome procedures that do little or nothing to protect personal data then bury their head in the sand.
Lawmakers, address that issue please.
Why would a hacker want to mess around with a single individual when he can steal millions just as easy?
There is an easy fix to all of this. If you want the findings of the computer tech to be admissable in civil or criminal court, use a tech with a PI License. If this need is immaterial, use anyone you please.
Would this also apply to software developers? What if a developer made a program, and there were bugs in the program. If the developer had to debug a particular customers problem, hence accessing the customers data, then they would need to have a PI license.
Let’s take it a step further. Microsoft produces and sells Windows Vista all over the workd. If a customer has trouble with thier system, and they call Microsoft Tech Support, and the technician remotely accesses the computer to troubleshoot the problem, will this person need to have a PI Licenses? Will all of India need to have a US PI License to answer the phones?
Most computer repairs involve figuring out what software is doing wrong, or what hardware is failing. That requires analysis. If a repair person finds something “illegal” on the storage devices, then .. what to do ?
Most small repair companies warn customers that they might lose all their data, as sometimes the only way to eliminate software problems is to start over with a clean software installation. So no analysis would be done on data that is gone, and no licensing compliance requirement regarding Private Investigators.
It’s what to do when “illegal” information is on the drive, for example, email about illegal drug sales, trafficking in stolen automobiles, child pornography. The repair technician is not going to be able to know who put that information on the drive; it might not be the person who brought the equipment in for repair !
As for criminal investigations, evidence must be preserved, and someone accused of “illegal” activities could claim in court that the computer repair facility had put that evidence on the drive to create a false accusation.
Arggh. Enough said. I don’t think I want to repair other people’s computers for them.
I live and work in Texas as an expert in the field of information assurance, which includes computer and network security and forensics. I have a graduate degree, several internationally recognized certifications, and extensive background checks. Why on earth do I need
three years of investigative experience or a bachelors degree in criminal justice for investigations company license.
• two consecutive years of legally acceptable experience in the guard company business; and
• successful completion of a two-hundred-question examination testing ability of the manager applicant to operate the guard company under the provisions of the statute regulating them.
Those Texas lawmakers are drinking drano. The world has a lot of screwy computers, we need techs, and to burden them with extra mandatory credentials is absolutely stupid, and their premise is pretty retarded. They don’t investigate, they fix. Fools.
Actually the law was lobbied for and by a PI group.
Under the law, if your company gets hacked, your IT person would need a PI license, to try and find out what happened!
Ok, how about this, you think your kid is going to porn sites, or hate sites or is talking on IM to a possible Child predator. Call up a tech and they would not be able to investigate and help you, because that would be against the law.
The computer person went to school to learn computers, the PI went to school and training to do PI work. Does that mean PI’s are going to need to get a computer degree or do an intern for 3 years with a Computer tech to get a license?
The whole thing was bought and paid for by the PI lobby group.
-Have to love politics.
This is the dumbest thing any state could possibly come up with. I agree that people who investigate “computer crimes” may need to be licenses, but the guy who removes a virus from a hard drive…..get real.
Besides, their business has adequate insurance to cover legal issues by the E&O part of the business insurance policies.
I live in Texas and applaud the legislature and the IOJ. I am always concerned when I take a computer in for repair. How do you know you’ve scrubbed it of legal/legit but personal data? I’m going to have to check the regulations because I’m involved with enterprise computers where you’re storing even more personal data covered under privacy acts and data whose mere browsing or disclosing to a 3rd party is subject to criminal sanctions.
I’ve urged repair depots to keep my bad hard drive in a safe place. I don’t think a workbench or on a shelf is all that safe. This is an additional area where the law hasn’t caught up yet.
Licensing makes someone more responsible??? Do you even have a CLUE what is required to gain a PI license in Texas? It doesn’t have a damn thing to do with being a decent computer technician. If they were that bored and wanted to legislate “privacy” issues, then send techs off to a “privacy, you, & the law” seminar, not 3 years worth of irrelevant cop-crap
This is not a bad law poorly written but right. When you take your computer in the technician can scan everything in and on like your bank records,your passwords, the hijacked website that has questionable if not illegal content.Look up the Edison Chan incident,and many others who are facing at least embarrassment if no prison terms for what was on their computer reported by s nosy technician.
Working at a computer repair company, I know that there is a specific niche for doing computer forensic and data analysis, which I think should require a license. However, the law was probably written by someone without any technical background. Its hard to legislate something that you know very little about.
This is a classic case of lawmakers making laws in areas they don’t understand. I doubt the lawmaker who brought this bill forward probably even knows how to turn a computer on.
If we are so worried about credentials, then why don’t we require politicians to get a Computer Science degree before they can introduce any legislation that impacts the IT industry. Maybe then we will get better laws that actually make sense.
Secondly, was there even a need for this kind of law or did this guy just think it would be a good idea? I bet some private investigation company lobbied for this so they can force people who need to do IT investigation into using them and their high priced services?
What if I was a computer security expert and I needed to do forensics to find out who is hacking our company? Am I now no longer allowed to do this because I need a criminal justice degree in addition to everything else I have already gone to school for?
This law is ridiculous and the courts need to knock it down as being unconstitutional. It places an undue burden on the community at large. Other politicians should introduce a bill to revoke this because it’s a big mistake.
Yet again a politician has stuck his face where it was not needed and created a law based on an utter lack of technical knowledge.
There is a fundamental difference between computer repairs and forensics, and to think a repair shop wowuld need to invest 3 yrs to gain a license is ridiculous.
Sounds like somebody found a new campaign contributor.
Texas. George Bush Land. Terrorist behind every tree. Any questions?
I think that every computer owner should now just keep their data on external hard drives – that way if the box needs service, the data stays with the USER.
No surprise. Big business (the Geek Squads of the world) considers private enterprise as locusts in their bean field. They need a massive market share to feed their gigantic advertising monster. The purpose of these laws is to weed out these little critters (entrepreneurs/small business) so the big guys can have an uncontested market. C’mon! It’s not private enterprise that’s paying these legislators’ campaign fees.
I agree. Would we let a stranger service our plasma TV or hitech gadgets? We need more responsible and more trained people to handle personal items, including a computer.
Yes i believe anyone that is looking into the private lives of a computer either commericial or personal, need to be acountiable thru licensing.
It looks like they started out with a good Idea and got carried away again one does not to make laws where their problems.How did it happen some one started and received an imput from some one and not knowing the industery just added it.
A clear example of a poorly written law and inattentive legislatures; along with opportunistic bureaucrats and attorneys. This will drag on for years and cost the Texas and its citizens millions. The Texas legislature could just rewrite the law, but that would be too easy.
Features-
Insurance costs are killing small firms -- but many entrepreneurs oppose government-backed coverage. More -
Smart entrepreneurs are now doing deals in 140 characters or less on Twitter. More -
In a tough economy, more business owners are bartering for the stuff they need. More -
In Oregon, the Recovery Act is paying for a local small business to protect nearby communities from wildfires. More -
As more customers choose - or are forced - to fill prescriptions by mail, independent pharmacies are struggling to survive. More -
A Texas hospitality company considers where to invest and where to cut back to weather the recession. More
The Texas law referenced in the article above is causing problems for robo-cop traffic enforcement. A Texas judge said the company running a red-light camera was acting illegally because it did not have a private investigator license. On the basis of this ruling, motorists are challenging traffic tickets. See deails: http://legal-beagle.typepad.com/wrights_legal_beagle/2008/12/e-discovery-forensics-private-investigator-license-for-computer-data-collection-and-assessment.html –Ben