Private Eyes, Private Lives : Detectives: As new privacy laws restrict access to personal information, technology has become more important.

Dan Jones doesn’t mind that his life as a private detective isn’t anything like that of his Hollywood-invented counterparts.

What he does mind is that most people don’t know it.

“The public’s perception of investigators is that they peek through bedroom windows and get information by all kinds of questionable methods. But it’s a total fallacy,” said Jones, a detective with offices in Ventura and Glendale. “A stereotypical investigator like that just doesn’t exist to any extent anymore.”

One reason for this is that many detectives now have a wide range of high-tech equipment at their disposal--cameras, recording equipment and computer banks--that enable them to find out, within minutes, information such as what property you own, what your driving record is, if you have a history of filing lawsuits, whether you are married or divorced, and whether you have a criminal background.

But there is another reason that old-fashioned snoop methods have become a thing of the past.

At the annual meeting of the California Assn. of Licensed Investigators (CALI), a nonprofit trade association that gathered recently in Ventura, Jones and nearly 200 detectives from throughout the state came to discuss the numerous changes that have complicated their profession.

Top among those changes, investigators said, and a topic woven into nearly every conversation at the CALI meeting, are the new privacy laws. These, investigators say, have made it more difficult to obtain certain types of information--including where you live and what your credit history is--than ever before.

“Right now, there is a trend toward anti-access of information. We’re looking at that as an eventual cost disaster for consumers,” said Robert Frasco, president of CALI and a Burbank private investigator.

One of the biggest and most recent changes to affect investigators occurred last year, following the July slaying of actress Rebecca Schaeffer in the doorway of her Los Angeles apartment.

Schaeffer’s assailant reportedly had obtained her home address through Department of Motor Vehicle public records. In August, amid public outcry for tighter controls on the dissemination of such information, Gov. George Deukmejian signed into law a bill that restricts the release of home addresses by the DMV.

Frasco said the law has had a crippling effect.

“What they didn’t talk about before they made this law,” said Frasco, “was that, in the three to five years preceding this event, there were more than 16 million legitimate uses of DMV address information. One crackpot misuses the information, and now all the businesses who need it for legitimate reasons are denied access.”

The governor acknowledged last year that the vast majority of address requests were for legitimate, lawful purposes, but added that public safety was at stake.

Investigators who must ferret out fraudulent claims on behalf of the insurance industry, Frasco said, have been particularly hard hit by the new law.

“You essentially have taken away the ability of the investigator to fight these claims,” Frasco said.

Peter Smart, a former senior investigator with the Ventura County district attorney’s office who now is a private investigator in Oxnard, said the DMV law has had an impact on cases he handles.

“A lot of people out there were adopted and are looking for their birth parents. The DMV used to be a great source of information for that,” Smart said, adding that he relies heavily on computer data banks for much of his investigative work.

“I’ve also had clients who were trying to locate an old friend, or cases where people have won judgments against people and are trying to collect on the judgment,” he said. “But they can’t find the person now. We don’t have the access.”

Private eyes don’t get all of their information from computer banks and public records. Tried and true methods--such as stakeouts to uncover such things as corporate thefts and fraudulent workers’ compensation claims--still do quite nicely in some cases. But even so, investigators report, all that new technology is affected by new privacy laws that change the way detectives work.

Unlike some TV portrayals, a private eye’s surveillances are not always conducted from the stereotypical, old Rambler with half-eaten sandwiches and empty coffee cups on the front seat. Many of today’s P.I.’s have state-of-the-art $80,000 vans, complete with infrared cameras and periscopes for hard to photograph subjects. The technology, detectives report, has increased the number of some convictions, because more positive identifications are made.

“A lot of times, information doesn’t mean anything if you don’t also have evidence. So there’s a lot of new technology that’s had a dramatic impact on the industry,” said Gary Williams, a former Bay Area undercover narcotics cop who has worked as a Silicon Valley private detective since 1976 and who co-led a well-attended seminar at the CALI meeting called, “Conducting a Moving Surveillance.”

At that seminar, Williams, Los Angeles private investigator Ed McLain and Santa Barbara private investigator Jim Rochester discussed new privacy laws pertaining to surveillances, including a federal bill that now limits the electronic monitoring of employees by employers.

One private detective in his late 20s raised his hand and inquired about the legality of photographing subjects away from public places, such as in their homes or back yards.

The question elicited murmurs from the group. “Even if you’re photographing from a public street, it’s borderline,” McLain said. “Twenty years ago, people accepted that type of conduct if the person was guilty. But not anymore,” he said. “Today, the idea of photographing into people’s homes has become extremely objectionable. You could get sued.”

Rochester interjected another piece of information pertaining to a messier form of surveillance. “Don’t go into people’s garbage in Ventura County, either,” he said, as several detectives in the audience began writing earnestly in their notebooks. “The police can do it, but investigators here have no right to. They can be prosecuted.”

But not all difficulty in getting information these days is the result of legal hindrances. Even when detectives knock on doors in a more straightforward approach to find out what people know or what they have seen they encounter obstacles.

Neighbors aren’t as talkative as they used to be. Employers are tight-lipped. Phone inquiries regarding the smallest details are met with, “Sorry, we can’t give you that kind of information.”

But not all difficulty in getting information these days is the result of legal hindrances. Individuals are increasingly unwilling, said investigators, to divulge personal information--an attitude confirmed by a recent Louis Harris and Associates poll, which found that Americans today are more concerned about their privacy than at any other time in the last 20 years. And, they added, it is getting more and more difficult to obtain information from businesses, which, many detectives believe, are more fearful of lawsuits.

“There seems to be a general attitude now that if you are asking for information, you are doing something you shouldn’t,” said McLain, who has been a Los Angeles investigator for the last 34 years. “I guess a lot of people are also concerned about the liability of the information giver. Most employers, for instance, will only confirm the date of hire and date of discharge.”

Frasco shares that belief. “Aunt Tilly calls from Nebraska and says her niece has been in California for a while but has stopped writing. She wants to know if she is OK,” he said, giving a hypothetical case for an investigator. “The police can’t help because there has been no crime. The neighbors won’t talk, because you might be stalking the girl.

“This is not the America we knew before,” he said. “People used to assume there was a legitimate reason for an inquiry. Now they assume there is a criminal intent.”

But difficulty in obtaining information may have caused a boost in business. Individuals and businesses that never before would have considered hiring a detective are now finding that they can’t get information on their own.

There is an upside to the issue. In many ways, the same thing that detectives consider to be their greatest problem--that is, difficulty in obtaining certain kinds of information--also may have caused a boost for business.

Unable to get background information on prospective employees, for instance, many employers now turn to detectives for help. Ditto for the businessman who plans to go into partnership with an individual, but first wants more information about the person.

As a result, the private detective industry has grown. In the last 10 years, the number of investigators in California has nearly tripled, up from 2,484 in 1979 to 6,046 in 1989, according to the Bureau of Collection and Investigative Services, the Sacramento-based agency responsible for the licensing of private investigators. In Ventura County, the rate was much the same, increasing from 71 investigators in 1979, to 192 last year.

Agency officials acknowledged that, among them all, there are bound to be a few who will ignore privacy laws and go outside ethical boundaries.

“They can change the laws all they want, and all they do is create a larger black market for information,” said Tom Eubanks a private investigator in Camarillo. “There are a lot of people who will give you information if you pay them.”

Former Ventura district attorney investigator Smart expressed scorn for such practices. “Sure, there are ways to get information if you are illegal, immoral, unethical or have enough money to buy it. But I don’t know any investigators who are unethical and who would go out and do things against the law to accomplish an objective.”

But what would happen if they did? According to a spokeswoman for the Bureau of Collection and Investigative Services said, they would be headed for trouble. If suspected of wrongdoing, an investigator’s name would be turned over to the Bureau of Consumer Affairs.

And what happens then?

Simple.

“They’ll be investigated by an investigator.”

Privacy and the Private Eye

‘They can change the laws all they want, and all they do is create a larger black market for information. There are a lot of people who will give you information if you pay them.’

Tom Eubanks

Camarillo private investigator

‘There seems to be a general attitude now that if you are asking for information, you are doing something you shouldn’t.’

Ed McLain

Los Angeles private investigator

‘This is not the America we knew before. . . . People used to assume there was a legitimate reason for an inquiry. Now they assume there is a criminal intent.’

Robert Frasco

President of California Assn. of Licensed Investigators