You’ve all seen the stories and heard conflicting rulings about the Right to Privacy/Invasion of Privacy. One of the most frequent questions we’re asked about is how private investigators get around the Right to Privacy issue.
The long and short of it is: private investigators don’t, or at least they shouldn’t.
Although private detectives and investigators are often depicted as going in to the grey areas in order to come back with the “money shot,” the fact of the matter is that evidence gathered in an illegal way is dismissed or won’t be allowed to be presented in a legal setting.
Advanced Professional Investigations treats every case as though it were
going to court. It may take a little longer, require more effort and cost a bit
more – but our documentation is not going to compromise your case in court by failing to pass legal scrutiny.
The right to privacy encompasses that which is not determined to be public domain, and as such private investigators and their clients must also be aware of the reasonable expectation of privacy. A person’s home is their domain. The same right that you expect goes for everyone else. For that reason, the ‘invisible’ line is drawn at the threshold of their door. If the subject is involved in activity on the front porch step which benefits the client, private investigators are going to document that (provided there’s not a six-foot privacy fence in the way.) If the subject is inside their home, it’s off limits.
It is far better to wait for a another moment for capturing video surveillance than it is to present documentation gained in a manner that is questionable in the eyes of the law. Advanced Professional Investigations doesn’t take risks with our client’s money on the line.