Private Detective Agencies: Need for Codified Legislations

INTRODUCTION:

The word ‘detective’ is derived from a Latin word detectus which essentially means ‘to uncover or expose’. So, the term ‘Private Investigator’ or ‘Private Detective’ or sometimes informally referred as a ‘Private Eye’ is a person who is being hired for his investigatory services by various individuals, government agencies and more so in private agencies to investigate corporate financial fraud and background screening for high cadre positions. In India, with no legislations to regulate and govern these private detective agencies, this article deals with the importance of these private agencies and how they operate in murky areas of uncodified laws but with an organised structure engulfed with a rather lax code of conducts just awaiting a codified regulatory legislations to enable the private detectives perform their tasks and also to encircle their scope of Investigation to limit them from resorting to non-legal and invasive ways to investigate. Now, with the contemporary circumstances and social structures, the need for these agencies for both Individual’s and corporates’ efficient disposal of issues is existing and we can draw influences from many foreign countries have a de rigueur fundamentals and an enhanced exhortation to synchronize this sector for employment.

PRIVATE DETECTIVES AND INDIAN PERSPECTIVES:

As there’s no authoritative source to cite accurate fugues of the growth in this industry, the 92^nd conference of World Association of Detectives (WAD), the only credible and serving association in the detective industry with its member branches spearheading across 80 countries, was held on October 2017, and the speakers of the WAD approximated a 30 percent year-on-year growth of private detective services in India, which is to be valued at around Rs. 1700 crores.^[1] This exponential growth is due to multitude of reasons such as increased demand of services in investigation of financial fraud in corporates, background verification and investigations into cyber frauds, etc.

In India, the the private detective service providers are classified under two heads

Traditional /personal investigations
Corporate investigations

Traditional/personal investigations generally dispense long established ministrations in stalking suspects, pre/post marital verifications, property verifications and even some cases of tracking of missing persons. Corporate investigations, which are unsurprisingly at their peak dispense services of pre-employment verifications, employee integrity checks, intellectual property violations, asset locations, counter surveillance, insurance and financial frauds, cyber breaches, etc.^[2]

The union government in 2007 tabled a legislative bill titled “The Private Detective Agencies Regulation Bill, 2007”, which tried to regulate and license the practices of the former traditional investigators and implicitly left out the corporate investigations. Though the bill has been lapsed, we can ascertain the object of the government to restrict their actions by consolidating citizens’ privacy vis-a-vis private investigators. The bill also provided for an official government sanction through licensing to practitioners and concerned agencies with a regulatory board and punitive provisions for the breach of privacy and other legal regulations. So, on a whole, this bill tried to establish a regulatory control over the industry and the main stakeholders too appreciated the move and after the bill was lapsed, the Association of Professional Detectives and Investigators (APDI) appealed to the Union ministry of home affairs to recognise their sector and reconsider introducing the Private Detective Agencies Regulation Bill 2007, which will add credibility to the profession but unfortunately the bill was withdrawn recently from Parliament by the ministry stating there was no need to impose licensing on this sector in which there were very few operators.^[3] Surprisingly, the rationale that fewer players requires no regulation holds no ground as stated by the president and chief of APDA – Tamil Nadu & Puducherry and assured that there will be around 30-40 agencies which will duly be registered just within their association and will successfully conduct 30-40 cases a month.^[4] These very numbers highlight the importance of a regulatory legislation.

While gazing the focus on other countries for the legislative framework, only a handful of countries – Canada, The United States, Ukraine – had a proper viable regulatory licensing procedures for their detectives and even the police departments of those countries took the services of these detective agencies irrespective of the age and educational background and this confirms is a testament to contention that a well regulated, monitored and sanctioned sector will become prove beneficial to everyone.

PRIVACY & PRIVATE AGENCIES:

While conducting an investigation, private detectives will be placed in a thin line between what can be aptly described as lawless and unlawful. If we take a hypothetical scenario, a person commissioning an agency to spy on his fiancée and to find out whether she’s is HIV positive or not, then the agency will try to investigate into such woman’s very private life, and it will include closely following her daily routine, places she visits, people she meets, etc., or bribe the doctors to gain access to her medical records and these actions are highly objectionable and questionable too but with there not being any data protection laws in the country and with little to no repercussions for what is essentially stealing one’s privacy, these actions are strictly not in under the ambit of police action. This is evident in the cases of supplying spyware to the anyone for a cost when questioned about their ethics, it was justified by saying “we sell spyware and there is nothing illegal. It is the responsibility of the client as to where they are installing it. As a seller I am not doing anything wrong.”^[5]

It isn’t surprising that when there is a self-regulatory setup within an industry, the degree of moral and legal conduct is ambiguous, for example in cases of online poker and online betting, which as seen a sharp rise in users recently and this industry is no exception to these happenings and there were multiple cases of data breaches by those private detective agencies and the most recent example would be a case of phone tapping the by Mumbai police where they arrested a handful of detectives – including Rajani Pandit, India’s first known private female detective – for illegally procuring phone records for certain high-profile clients. Lawyer Rizwan Siddiqui, whose clients include actors Kangana Ranaut and Nawazuddin Siddiqui, was also arrested later for his alleged involvement in the case and the police suspect that the detectives had been accessing call records of certain individuals and selling this confidential information to their clients^[6]. This one case essentially proved the voluntary breaches and disregard of public’s privacy in name of investigations and truth seeking and one of the better options to regulate such invasion is through legalising it and enforcing ethical conduct by the state.

CONCLUSION:

Since the industry of private detectives is still in its nascent stage, it doesn’t mean it should not be unregulated for lack of serious violations or invasions. These agencies virtually mastered the craft of extracting date through hacking or intrusive tracking and a need for a strict legislations is open and it should regulate this industry in the light of pre-eminence.

^[1] Sanjay kaw, Private detectives : A Booming Industry in modern India (Oct 13,2017, 02:34 AM), https://www.asianage.com/metros/delhi/131017/private-detectives-a-booming-industry-in-modern-india.html

^[2] TV Mahalingam, How India Inc is becoming a big client of a booming detective agency business,(Jul 15,2012, 10:29 AM), https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/company/corporate-trends/how-india-inc-is-becoming-a-big-client-of-a-booming-detective-agency-business/articleshow/14912643.cms?from=mdr

^[3] Aditi R, Reconsider Private Detective Agencies Bill, Centre urged, THE TIMES OF INDIA ,(Jan.20,2021, 04:11 PM), https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chennai/reconsider-private-detective-agencies-bill-centre-urged/articleshow/80353514.cms

^[4] Id. at 2

^[5] Bhavya Dhore, Private detectives walk a thin legal line in India, even when not stealing phone records,(Apr.11 ,2018,11 :30 AM), https://scroll.in/magazine/874376/private-detectives-are-walking-a-thin-legal-line-in-india-even-when-not-stealing-phone-records

^[6] Id.at 3