A licensed Florida private investigator operates under Chapter 493 of the Florida Statutes, and the limits in it are not professional etiquette. They are the line between evidence you can use and evidence that damages your case.
Most people hire an investigator expecting the constraint to be cost. The real constraint is admissibility of method: how something was obtained determines whether it is worth having at all. Insight Investigative Group, LLC is a licensed Florida agency, agency license A3400127. This is general information, not legal advice.
What does Florida law require of a private investigator?
Chapter 493 requires a licence for investigative work, and there are two that matter: a Class A agency licence for the firm and a Class C licence for the individual investigator. Hiring an unlicensed operator is not a bargain. It is a person with no licence to lose, working on a matter where their conduct may later be examined under oath.
Section 493.6121(2) requires a licensed agency to keep the case file for at least two years and produce it to the state regulator on request. Section 493.6119 prohibits releasing the contents of that file to anyone other than the client or employer, subject to narrow exceptions. Those two run together: your file is confidential, and it also cannot be destroyed on request.
What can an investigator legally do?
Conduct surveillance from public places and public vantage points where there is no reasonable expectation of privacy. Search public records, including court, property, corporate and licensing filings. Run licensed database searches for identity and address history. Take statements from people willing to give them. Conduct open source and social media research on publicly visible material. Document all of it to evidentiary standards.
That is a wider field than most clients expect, and it is where nearly every case is actually won.
What is off limits, and why?
No licensed investigator can lawfully obtain bank balances or account records, telephone call records, sealed or expunged records, credit reports, or medical records. Access to those runs through a subpoena, a court order, or the subject’s own written authorization.
Recording a private conversation requires the consent of all parties under section 934.03 of the Florida Statutes, which makes Florida a two party consent state and catches a great many people out. Placing a tracking device on another person’s vehicle without consent is prohibited by section 934.425. Trespass is trespass regardless of who is paying for the photographs.
Why do the limits protect the client, not just the investigator?
Because evidence obtained unlawfully does not simply fail to help. It taints the file it sits in, invites a motion you then have to answer, and can expose the client who commissioned it to liability of their own. In a family matter that exposure can reach custody itself.
A firm that offers to get into an account, pull phone records, or drop a tracker on a car is not being resourceful. It is telling you exactly how it will handle the rest of your case, including the parts you will not be watching.
What about pretexting?
Pretexting means misrepresenting who you are to obtain information. Some forms are lawful and some are squarely illegal, particularly where financial records are involved. We do not misrepresent ourselves to obtain a statement, because a statement obtained by pretext is worth less in a proceeding than no statement at all once the method is disclosed.
How do I tell a professional from an amateur?
Ask for the licence numbers and check them against the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services record. Ask what they will not do, and listen for whether the answer is specific. Ask how the report will be structured and who can testify to it.
An investigator who answers the third question well has produced reports that were tested. One who cannot has not.
Written by Joshua Goldberg, Florida private investigator license C3400073, owner of Insight Investigative Group, LLC, agency license A3400127, Bradenton, Florida. General information, not legal advice.
Related: surveillance services and what a background investigation covers.
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