We still do neighbourhood inquiries, but over the last three decades this has produced less and less information of value, to the point that we now consider this an extraordinarily expensive investigative process.

Neighbours rarely share derogatory information or observations about the subject, and fewer still, even know the subject as most urban neighbourhoods are too transient and social contact is minimal.

Today’s neighbourhood isn’t tied to geography, but rather by Internet connectivity. The advent of virtual media has created virtual neighbourhoods that the Investigator must be adept at navigating and interrogating.

This new neighbourhood may reveal inappropriate pictures, drug and alcohol abuse, bad-mouthing of employers, co-workers, clients, and organisations. It may reveal poor communication skills and much worse – much of which is found exclusively online.

Unfortunately, inexpert interrogation and navigation of this neighbourhood has caused issues.

The ubiquity of Internet search engines and a lack of training and guidelines may put the Investigator in contravention of some laws if the resulting information creates a record of personally identifying information that is subsequently mishandled. Possession of Internet search results may impose either declared or implied responsibilities regarding the handling of the data in some jurisdictions.

A casual and undisciplined approach to Internet and social media searching raises questions regarding the competence, handling, fairness, storage, and analysis of the data. The role of the Investigator doing the searching should be clear from the outset. The sources and methods employed should also be clear throughout the search process and its reporting.

Virtual Identities

The subjects of an investigation do not line-up to tell the Investigator all his or her screen names and their related email addresses.

The Investigator must find the screen names and related email addresses from what he already knows at the beginning of the Investigation to build an online profile of the subject.

The Investigator must also recognise that screen names are often used by more than one person or a screen name may be used maliciously.

As the old New Yorker cartoon said, “On the Internet, nobody knows you are a dog”.

Navigation & Interrogation

The unstructured nature of data available on the Internet, and its density, creates problems for the searcher.

Google may say it found three million hits, but it will only show one thousand. The results will change depending on which version of Google searched and whence it is searched.

When searching for information about a person or company, the Investigator shouldn’t get bogged-down by search engine hits, but rather go straight to databases that have the right category of data for his purposes. This may mean searching sources not indexed by the search engines.

Google isn’t a substitute for knowledge and experience.

Wired Magazine has posted the Indictment of the accused who allegedly employed false pretenses to gain personal information. A related Wired article compares this type of pretexting to the HP mess.

The accused are from Washington, California, Oregon, Texas and New York:

Emilio Torrella, BNT Investigations, Washington State
Brandy Torella, BNT Investigations, Washington State
Steve Berwick, BNT Investigations, Washington State
Victoria Tade, C.I., Inc., California
Megan Ososke, P.I. and Information Services, Oregon
Robert Grieve, Robert Greive International, Texas
Ziad Sakhleh, Robert Greive International, Texas
Darci Templeton, sole proprietor, Texas
Patrick Bombino, AAA Allstate Investigations, New York
Esau Pinto, AAA Allstate Investigations, New York

The Indictment alleges that BNT supplied the improperly obtained personal information to the PI’s for a fee. BNT was not identified as a private investigation firm in the Indictment, but was identified as a company that sold its pretexting services to PI firms. Some of the PI firms even advertised for sale to other PI’s what they were obtaining from BNT.

Accusations #17 and #21 allege that BNT obtained medical information by pretext, much in the same way as was revealed by he Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Confidentiality of Health Records in Ontario, Canada, by Mr. Justice Horace Krever.

The alleged defendants collected information via pretext from the I.R.S., Social Security Administration, various State Unemployment Insurance Departments, private financial institutions, banks, pharmacies and hospitals. The alleged defendants fraudulently posed as the individuals about who information was sought.

If this is true, they broke Rule #1.

Washington State requires a Private Investigator to be licensed. However, it seems that BNT Investigations and the three named individuals in Washington state might not have state-issued Private Investigator’s licences. I don’t know the licence status of the others.

This type of behaviour is not new. In Canada, this issue was, in part, dealt with during the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Confidentiality of Health Records in Ontario, Canada, by Mr. Justice Horace Krever.

The Royal Commission heard from over 500 witnesses, including private investigation firms, insurance companies, hospitals, and others. During 1976 and 1977, the Royal Commission found evidence of hundreds of successful efforts to acquire health information from Ontario hospitals and doctors under pretext.

The Insurance Bureau of Canada admitted to the Royal Commission that its members had gathered medical information through “various sources” without the authorization of the patients.

Several investigation companies went out of business due to the Royal Commission exposing their activities.

Where there are clients willing to pay for this improper and unprofessional behaviour, there will be providers of such services.

In October 2007 the Supreme Court ruled on whether there was a cause of action for negligent investigation in Hill v. Hamilton‑Wentworth Regional Police Services Board, 2007 SCC 41. The case involved the police investigation of criminal charges.

The case summary described the facts as follows:

“Hill was investigated by the police, arrested, tried, wrongfully convicted, and ultimately acquitted after spending more than 20 months in jail for a crime he did not commit. Police officers suspected that Hill had committed 10 robberies. The evidence against Hill included a tip, a police officer’s photo identification of Hill, eyewitness identifications, a potential sighting of Hill near the site of one of the robberies, and witness statements that the robber was aboriginal. During their investigation, the police released Hill’s photo to the media. They also asked witnesses to identify the robber from a photo lineup consisting of Hill, who is an aboriginal person, and 11 similar looking Caucasian foils. The police, however, also had information that two Hispanic men, one of whom looks like Hill, were the robbers.

Two similar robberies occurred while Hill was in custody. Hill was charged with 10 counts of robbery but 9 charges were withdrawn before trial. Trial proceeded on the remaining charge because two eyewitnesses remained steadfast in their identifications of Hill. Hill was found guilty of robbery. He appealed and a new trial was ordered. Hill was acquitted at the second trial and brought a civil action that included a claim in negligence against the police based on the conduct of their investigation.”

The court began by clearly stating that a tort for negligent investigation exists and it may succeed.

“I conclude that police are not immune from liability under the Canadian law of negligence, that the police owe a duty of care in negligence to suspects being investigated, and that their conduct during the course of an investigation should be measured against the standard of how a reasonable officer in like circumstances would have acted. The tort of negligent investigation exists in Canada, and the trial court and Court of Appeal were correct to consider the appellant’s action on this basis. The law of negligence does not demand a perfect investigation. It requires only that police conducting an investigation act reasonably. When police fail to meet the standard of reasonableness, they may be accountable through negligence law for harm resulting to a suspect.”

The court also addressed concern about any chill on the actions of the police by stating:

“First, the argument that a duty to take reasonable care toward suspects conflicts with an overarching duty to investigate crime is tenuous. The officer’s duty to the public is not to investigate in an unconstrained manner. It is a duty to investigate in accordance with the law….

“In theory, it is conceivable that police might become more careful in conducting investigations if a duty of care in tort is recognized. However, this is not necessarily a bad thing. The police officer must strike a reasonable balance between cautiousness and prudence on the one hand, and efficiency on the other. Files must be closed, life must move on, but care must also be taken. All of this is taken into account, not at the stage of determining whether police owe a duty of care to a particular suspect, but in determining what the standard of that care should be.”

However, the court concluded that there was no negligence:

“I therefore conclude that although Detective Loft’s decision not to reinvestigate can be faulted, judged in hindsight and through the lens of today’s awareness of the danger of wrongful convictions, it has not been established that Detective Loft breached the standard of a reasonable police officer similarly placed.”

The full text of the Hill case maybe found at: www.canlii.org/en/ca/scc/doc/2007/2007scc41/2007scc41.html.

1. Don’t do anything that you wouldn’t do on the steps in front of City Hall.

2. Don’t do or say anything you wouldn’t want published in the Globe and Mail.

3. Don’t do anything illegal because it’s too inconvenient to cover your tracks.

If you’re the type of person who would clout the Mayor on the nose at a City Hall news conference, then my rules (and all the ethics seminars in the the world) won’t help you.