gumshoes and gorillas

This page offers a brief consideration of private investigation and surveillance activity, which ranges from private detectives through to commercial security services.

It covers -

• introduction
• watching
• investigation
• sorting
• studies

The private security sector (including its regulation) is discussed in a more detailed six page note elsewhere on this site.

     introduction

It has been fashionable to conceptualise the liberal democratic state as one that successfully aspires to maintain a monopoly of force and that broadly restricts 'surveillance' by non-government entities. In practice, as is evident in discussion throughout this site, advanced economies are founded on an acceptance - even encouragement - of individual and corporate consumption of a range of surveillance services.

Providers of those services constitute what one critic characterises as the continuum from Hollywood gumshoes to gorillas, including practitioners with a high level of skill (often independently certified) and people who failed to get employment as cleaners or fast-food counter staff.

The acceptance reflects a recognition that government agencies cannot and should not be omnipresent. It also reflects assignment to private individuals and organisations of responsibility for much prevention of commercial loss and enforcement of rights.

Overall we can identify a range of surveillance activities in the private sector. Some are considered quite legitimate (and indeed are usually taken for granted). Others are more contentious or even broadly considered to be illicit.

Those activities include -

• facility 'watching services'
• private investigators, used by individuals and organisations to collect information regarding insurance fraud, corporate espionage and other matters
• corporate data collectors and brokers such as consumer credit reference services, direct mail list brokers
• 'verification service' providers that for example vet job applicants and test employees for drug consumption
• private security services such as night-club bouncers and staff who 'sweep' beggars from quasi-public spaces.

Some of those services watch individuals and operate on a craft basis, including reliance on personal observation. Others operate on an industrial scale - obtaining, processing and disseminating data about millions of people. Emphases vary from protection (eg intrusion detection or identification of shoplifting) to collection of information. Some of that information might be specific (the 'cheating husband' or the job applicant). Other information might be diffuse, enabling a panoptic sort of particular demographics for direct marketing or for denial of personal finance and insurance.

Increasingly there has been a blurring of roles - and of discrete surveillance organisations - with the emergence of a 'private market for force' (sometimes used by states or major corporations alongside or as a surrogate for armies and police forces) and emergence of surveillance conglomerates that encompass direct mail list services, employee drug testing and consumer credit referencing.

     watching

Private 'watching services' - on a volunteer and commercial basis, covering precincts and specific locations - predate the establishment of modern police forces. Commercial watching services have expanded from traditional 'night watchman' security patrols, store detectives and private guards to encompass 'CCTV jockeys' and other personnel monitoring facilities such as office buildings, retail malls, tollways and computer networks.

Much of that observation is undertaken for the private sector but it is important to note that governments have turned to commercial services for management of facilities and, increasingly, for surveillance of public precincts.

Studies in Surveillance, Crime & Social Control (Aldershot: Ashgate 2006) edited by Clive Norris & Dean Wilson for example highlight local government use of contractors to operate large-scale urban CCTV networks, with a blurring of boundaries between officials, police and private sector surveillance personnel.

The effectiveness of much of that watching is uncertain, with suggestions for example that it is inappropriately biased towards particular offences (or particular classes of perceived offenders such as 'hoodies') and that it sometimes operates as a placebo (with ineffective follow-up when incidents are detected and failure to watch screens that might be displaying an incident in progress).

Some organisations traditionally employed large numbers of undercover private investigators and informants (Ford was an egregious example, others include government railways and even religious orders) to identify union activism, deal with corruption or merely coerce a workforce. Retailers continue to use 'store detectives' to covertly watch customers and staff, unsurprising given that much shoplifting or 'stock shrinkage' appears to involve insiders rather than amateur and professional thieves. Some of that observation is face to face; other surveillance relies on technologies such as visible or concealed cameras.

Although covert surveillance to deter unionisation has become unfashionable in most jurisdictions, organisations have however come to justify a range of observation practices on the basis of preventing sexual harassment, workplace bullying, insider trading and other concerns. Some observation reflects a genuine concern for employees and customers. Other observation reflects a lack of imagination or simply an effort to minimise corporate liability regarding potential litigation by victims and compliance agencies.

It includes scrutiny of -

• email (and of other messaging systems)
• web surfing
• voice calls
• financial records
• keystrokes
• travel by employees (eg through GPS or other tracking devices in courier vehicles or examination of hotel bookings)

As discussed elsewhere on this site, much of that scrutiny in Australia and other jurisdictions is legal because the subject has been alerted that surveillance may/will take place and has assented to that observation (typically as a condition of work, whether as a merchant banker or as a cleaner).

     investigation

Individuals and organisations (including major financial institutions and law firms) have used private investigators in surveillance of partners, clients and competitors for over 150 years. What would now be tagged the 'private detective' or 'commercial investigation service' predate Sherlock Holmes and Alan Pinkerton (1819-1884), who is sometimes claimed as the model for corporate investigators.

Services provided by such investigators include -

• identification of spousal infidelity
• tracing of missing children or partners
• evidence collection in cases of personal insurance fraud (eg bogus personal injury claims)
• evidence collection regarding suspected financial appropriation or fraud (including tracing of assets and investigation of suspected arson)
• locating witnesses for legal proceedings
• providing computer forensic services
• pre-employment background checks and other private sector vetting
• checking for property lease violations or breaches of commercial licensing agreements
• 'mystery shopper' or other retail quality control mechanisms.

Use of service providers is not restricted to the private sector. In 2001 for example it was revealed that Australian federal government welfare agency Centrelink used 19 surveillance service providers and had covertly monitored 3,000 benefit recipients. In 2007 the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority indicated use hiring of private investigators to monitor athletes, coaches and officials using video and audio surveillance equipment.

The number of people engaged in commercial investigation often surprises observers unfamiliar with the industry. In NSW during 2002, for example, there was official licencing under that state's Commercial Agents & Private Enquiries Agents Act 1963 of -

• 1084 Private Inquiry Agents
• 421 Private Inquiry Sub-Agents
• 276 Commercial Agents
• 505 Commercial Sub-Agents

The Police Federation of Australia claimed in 2002 that as of 1999 there were 31,752 employees in the Australian "private security industry" at a time when there were 43,038 sworn police officers. A year earlier the ABC reported that over 100,000 people were employed in the "security industry". Uncertainty reflects definitional disagreement, extensive use of subcontracting and lack of comprehensive registration and reporting.

The extent of churn within the industry is unclear, although it appears likely that turnover of personnel is high, given -

• overlap with debt collection activity
• practitioner disillusionment (snooping on errant spouses and insurance claimants is less exciting than portrayed in much film noir)
• low external and workplace training
• a tradition of employee exploitation and low rewards that in some instances are insufficient to offset practitioner boredom, disquiet with criticism from contacts and even ethical qualms
• undercapitalisation of many small enterprises.

In the interim a discussion of pretexting is here, along with a discussion of agents used by major information brokers and bodies such as major insurance companies and law firms.

     sorting

For many people their main exposure to surveillance is embodied in loan applications, insurance claims, monthly credit card and debit card statements and property or equipment rental applications. That surveillance forms what Christian Parenti characterises as the 'soft cage' surrounding most consumers. It was explored by Daniel Solove in The Digital Person: Technology and Privacy in the Information Age (New York: New York Uni Press 2004), which notes the blurring of traditional demarcations as a range of government agencies and commercial entities collect, aggregate and exchange personal information.

Pervasive panopticism through aggregation and analysis of financial transactions is highlighted later in this profile as a point of entry to more detailed discussion regarding consumer credit referencing, tenancy blacklists, vetting and data broking.

     studies

Points of entry to the literature are -

• Tim Prenzler's 2001 Private investigators in Australia: work, law, ethics and regulation (PDF) study for the Criminology Research Council
• Alison Wakefield's Selling Security: The Private Policing of Public Space (Cullompton: Willan 2003)
• The Law of Private Security in Australia (Pyrmont: Law Book Co 2005) by Rick Sarre & Tim Prenzler
• The Market for Force: The Consequences of Privatizing Security (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni Press 2005) by Deborah Avant
• Patricia Schefcick's 2004 The Information Seeking Behavior of Private Investigators: A Study of Investigators in North Carolina and Georgia (PDF)
• Private Security and the Investigative Process (New York: Elsevier 1999) by Charles Nemeth
• Private Policing (Beverly Hills: Sage 1990) edited by Clifford Shearing & Philip Stenning
• The Australian private security industry: the need for Accountability, Regulation and Professionalisation (PDF) by Paul Wilson.

A more detailed bibliographical note is here.

Local industry bodies include the Australian Security Industry Association (ASIAL), Institute of Mercantile Agents (IMA) and competing Institute of Professional Investigators (AIPI).

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