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DO INVESTIGATORS USE ETDS ON YOUR ASSIGNMENTS?
The following is an excerpt from a flyer mass mailed to private investigators by one vendor of electronic tracking devices:
PROTECT YOUR HEALTH
Surveillance can be fatiguing and cause tremendous emotional stress. Do you want to forfeit a nights rest to learn your target vehicle did not move? By utilizing our service, you can get your rest while the ETD is monitoring your vehicles 24 hours 7 days a week. Additionally, the ETD allows you, as a customer, to gather the information from the comfort of your own home.
What's wrong with this statement, besides the spelling error? (I assume they mean night's, not nights.)
First of all, the premise is wrong. Surveillance is not particular fatiguing and I don't know of any professional investigators who suffer "great emotional stress" in a situation where a "target vehicle" doesn't move. Boredom, perhaps, but stress? And while most working folks may dream of getting paid to loaf around at home, they generally resign themselves to getting their rest on their own time, not while being paid to do a job.
Forgive my sarcasm, but there's a couple of real serious problems here.
Placing such a device on a vehicle with the knowledge of a person in legal control of the vehicle--such as the owner of a trucking company--might often make sense, especially in cases involving high risk cargo.
However, even ignoring the fact that placing such a device on the vehicle of persons without their consent may result in civil and perhaps even criminal exposure, the very intrusiveness of such a tactic is something that provides unacceptable risk to the image and reputation of the client of any investigator found using such a device. A rather loathsome image emerges when you visualize a strange character sitting in an apartment like "Doctor Evil" monitoring the movements of unsuspecting citizens as they go about their daily lives. I suspect media ratings would soar after exposing a single personalized incident, devastating the public image of the investigator's client.
The other problem, and it's a significant one--regardless of opinions concerning people's rights to privacy--is this: Most surveillances handled by private investigators involve following people, not following vehicles. The fact that, for instance a fraudulent insurance claimant's vehicle remained in position all evening, doesn't mean the claimant didn't ride to the bowling alley with a friend--or didn't head off to a full time strenuous job with a car pool buddy. And a suspected stalker might decide to walk to the house of the victim the investigator is "protecting," or use public transportation. The fact a vehicle doesn't move often means zip.
At loss Prevention Concepts, Ltd., we are not against technological advancements in the investigation field. We are against intrusive privacy invasion and irresponsibly putting our clients at risk. We are also concerned about the potential these devices have for unscrupulous private investigators to defraud their clients.
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