Headline, September11, 2013

''' !!! DATA-BASED FACE OF PRIVATE

 INVESTIGAT​ION !!! '''

'''Take the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir Peter Imbert,'' Brogan says. ''Now his number shouldn't be available because he's a prime terrorist target, but I could probably pull it. I know he's the member of the RAC and has an American Express gold card, because I once saw him pay for lunch with it.

Alternately, I could look up his wife's credit rating and see if she's given her number to an agency. Once you've established the home address, anything is possible.''

Of course, Brogan would not invade Sir Peter's privacy  -or anyone else's-  unless he had a very good reason to suspect wrong doing. But there is nothing in the Data Protection or Consumer Credit Acts to prevent a less scrupulous investigator from doing so.

 As the law stands anyone can access a database as long as they register with the Data Registrar, the authority established to monitor the Data Protection Act.

In some cases, however, there is an onus on the data provider to satisfy himself that you have a legitimate reason to access his database. Thus, credit information would be made available to a bank, but not to an individual who simply wishes, for example, to check the neighbor's credit-worthiness.

If, however, you are a private detective and are instructed by solicitors to carry out debt collection, then you'd have a legitimate reason under the law to access Westcott. And once you obtained that information, the law makes it an offence to convey it to a third party who is not also registered to receive it.

Thus, in theory the law is supposed to protect the public. If you think someone is holding false information about you on a database, then you can write to the Data Registrar and ask to see the file and have the information corrected. But you may well have no idea that you are under investigation by a private detective until it is too late. 

And an investigator who already has access to Westcott can easily call up credit information about an individual he has no lawful reason to investigate without the authorities being aware of it.

Ultimately, the privacy of the information depends upon the trust the data provider places in the subscriber. In the case of solicitors and accountants, who are bound by professional codes of conduct, this trust may be well-placed. In the case of private detectives, however, it probably is not. ''At the moment,'' says Brogan, ''anyone can set themselves up as a private detective. There is no licensing system, unlike in America. where private detectives have to pass their exams and renew their licenses annually.

Last week, I had a Magistrate call and ask me if I would do a profile on the fellow members of his bench( !hahaha!) I asked why, and it turned out he was just looking for dirt (!hahaha!)  so I refused. But I know plenty of investigators who wouldn't have.''

Richard Carratu agrees that the present regulation system is inadequate: ''We never take information gleaned from one database for granted. We always try to check it for accuracy against at least two or three other sources. But if you want to disrupt a business competitor or simply spread rumours, the system is certainly open to abuse.''

For all his sophistication, however, Brogan is not above employing old fashioned techniques when the client calls for them. During Guinness bid for Distillers, for instance, Brogan was asked to keep two executives working on the merger under surveillance, so he hired a team of detectives to follow them to Aberdeen.

The only problem was that the Distillers had the same idea. ''By the time the executives boarded the aircraft for the return flight to London,'' Brogan says, ''there were nineteen people on board    - fifteen of them private investigators. Well,  my men took one look at each other and burst out laughing. They were all following the same guys.''

!!! Hahaha !!!

All said and done, the commercial side is very interesting, even though the technology is far from cheap.

The  average yearly subscription to a Database like Westcott is £250, Nexis charges can be as high as $ 150 an hour. Nevertheless, the solicitors who employ Brogan's services are prepared to pay because his information is well-documented and, unlike evidence collected by more traditional illegal methods, can't be thrown out of court.

The World Students Society Computers-Internet-Wireless must consider a cross-referenced Database system. You all could make many many fortunes!!

With respectful dedication to the Students, Professors and Teachers of Estonia. See ya all on !WOW! : ''Bugs & Burns''

Good Night & God Bless!

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless