How To Keep Records Of Your Private Investigation Business

How do I keep records of my business?

The types of logs that you need to keep usually are required concerning the data that you access. There's a federal law called the Graham H. Bliley Act and it has an area in it called "Permissible Purposes." You just cannot access the proprietary data bases that are available to licensed Private Investigators. Let's say I want to know everything about John Doe, you can't go downloading his Social Security information, his credit/debtors, his DMV information without a legitimate purpose, a legitimate reason. On my website, I have a statement that says, "You're looking to find this and this out and you are in certain fields I can do that for you." But if you're some guy who met a girl at a nightclub on Sunset Strip and you want me to run a license plate, I can't do that for you. I have to have a legitimate reason to run a license plate. In fact, I'm being audited on the 12th of this month by the DMV because I have to explain every plate that I ever ran, every driving record that I ever ran, show them why that was part of the case and why it was necessary. You can't just access people's personal information because you're curious. The law says you have to say why you did it and what case it was involved in.