PRIVATE EYES, PRIVATE LIVES : Ground Rules : Recent changes in the law have changed the sleuthing business. Take the ‘eye-Q’ test below.

So you think you want to be a private eye. You’ve got the fedora. You can talk tough. You know a sexy dame who can dangle her legs by your desk. But before you rush out to have a huge eye stenciled on your door, there are a few things about privacy laws you ought to know first. Many of them were enacted within the last few years, and restrict the methods by which private eyes can gather facts about individuals. Imagine, for a moment, that you’re a private investigator. Take the test below to see how well you’d do as a sleuth working within the law.

1) An employer suspects there might be a drug abuse problem at his company. Unknown to anyone, he hires you to pose as a new employee, in the hope of gathering incriminating evidence. Are his employees’ rights to privacy being violated?

2) Someone was injured on the job and is collecting workers’ compensation benefits. His employer hires you to find out if the claim is legitimate. You follow the injured party to the grocery store, the post office and the city park, watching to see if there is any indication that he is less injured than he claims. Are you infringing in any way on his privacy rights?

3) Now, you drive to the same injured worker’s home. You position yourself so you can focus a high-powered camera on his back yard, which is not visible from the street. Now are his rights being violated?

4) One of your clients has just begun dating a woman and secretly hires you to find out more about her background. Specifically, he wants to know what her sexual history is, and whether she might have been exposed to AIDS. Can you obtain all necessary information about her medical history?

5) You’ve used a few questionable methods to obtain some information for a client. You get sued. Can your client also be sued for invasion of privacy?

6) A company has been trying to find out about Mr. Green, who is applying for a job. He has listed, as a reference, a previous employer, who is refusing to divulge any information about what kind of worker Mr. Green is. The company hires you, and you proceed to interview several of Mr. Green’s former colleagues. Have Mr. Green’s rights to privacy been violated?

7) You call a source but fail to mention that you are tape recording the entire conversation. Would the recording be considered legal evidence in a California court of law?

8) You go to someone’s home, hoping to get information about a neighbor. Instead of identifying yourself as a detective, you claim to be the head of a company where the neighbor has applied for a job. Since the position involved is highly sensitive, you say, you need to find out if there is anything the company should know about this person. Would any statements given to you hold up in a court of law?

9) Who has legal access to Mr. Smith’s credit history--a private investigator--you--hired to find out if he would be a responsible business partner; or the employee of a furniture store where Mr. Smith has asked to buy a new sofa with deferred payments?

10) You are trying to find out everything you can about Ms. Jones. Of the following information, what can be legally obtained: A) Her address, through Department of Motor Vehicle records; B) A record of her phone calls, through the local phone company; C) Any property she owns in the state, through the state tax assessor’s office ; D) Her bank account statements, through a local bank; E) None of the above.

Answers:

1) No. “Employers are completely within their rights to hire a detective to determine if crimes are being committed in the workplace,” according to Robert Frasco, president of the California Assn. of Licensed Investigators.

2) No. As long as he is in a public place, where courts have ruled that individuals have “no reasonable expectation of privacy,” detectives can monitor his actions.

3) Probably. “If a person had a chain-link fence, it would be understood that they couldn’t expect to have privacy,” Frasco said. “But if the person had a back yard that gave him a reasonable expectation of privacy, it would be an invasion.”

4) Not through her medical records, which are confidential unless she has given written authorization for them to be reviewed. However, any information pertaining to her medical background that is contained in public records--such as in divorce settlements-- could be obtained legally by private investigators.

5) Possibly. Under a recently passed California law, the person who hires a private detective can be held liable for the actions of the investigator. As a result, Frasco encourages consumers to do a little investigative work of their own before hiring a private eye. “Call the Bureau of Collection and Investigative Services in Sacramento to find out if there have been any consumer complaints against the person,” Frasco said. “Also, ask the person for references.”

6) No. “If a person lists an employer on a job application, it is understood there will be some background check,” Frasco said, adding that an increasing number of employers now hire private investigators to find out more about prospective employees. “An employer has a right to verify former job experience, as indicated by the employee,” he said. “Talking to former colleagues is not a violation of privacy, in the absence of any agreement to the contrary.”

7) No. Although federal law states that only one party must be aware of a conversation that is being tape recorded, California law requires that both parties be aware and both must give their consent to having their conversation taped.

8) Probably not. According to Frasco, the detective’s actions would be highly questionable. In addition, he said, people who give information under such false pretexts can later claim that “they didn’t tell the truth because they didn’t know the true facts of the question, or that they wouldn’t have given the information if they had known the person was a detective.”

9) The furniture store employee.

10) C. Information regarding ownership of property is public record, and can be obtained legally by an investigator without anyone’s consent.