Industry Standards

Something near and dear to us here at Elemental Solutions are industry standards for PI's, not only here in balmy Ottawa, Canada (of course I jest in the midst of one of the worst winters in recent memory), but around the world.

There has been a large push to bring PIs in line with other professional industries, particularly considering the ever increasing sensitivity to privacy issues and can be seen in most countries really beginning to take hold.

Canada, like may nations, benefits from a national requirement for privacy issues, allowing for fairly uniform standards between the provinces, which hold ultimate jurisdiction. Other countries, such as the US, operate on a state by state basis, which requires an understanding of each state's views on privacy and the industry to known how the laws and standards may apply to the industry.

The pushes all around the world are still largely in their infancies, focussing on bringing licensing out to the profession and basic levels of training and liability. These changes are also having the benefit seen in most industries when licensing and common practices are instituted, that of a reduction in unskilled and unethical businesses operating in the environment.

There are some in the industry who continue to resist the changes coming to the industry, and for those agencies, I would say that their time is rapidly coming to a close. Increasing liability issues in the face of breaches of privacy are on the move, a reduction in tolerance for obtaining black market information for cases is becoming more evident and the existence of an ever increasing well informed client base will lead to these agencies adapting or dying.

These changes are ultimately a boon to clients who need to know that their PI agency of choice has met some basic standards. It also benefits the investigations industry when sub-contracting out work across jurisdictions by ensuring that a potential contractor can be counted on to conduct themselves in a certain manner. It also ensures that our industry is kept in the highest esteem of the communities in which we serve, allowing our client bases to thrive.

If you want to learn more about the private investigator regulations in your jurisdiction, do a search fro your state, provincial or national level private investigator associations. They will be able to discuss the standards to which your local PIs are held, as well as how to ensure you are dealing with a licensed PI.

Blog post is courtesy Elemental Investigations: Private Investigator Edmonton, an Edmonton, Canada based private investigator agency. They can be found online at www.elementalpi.ca

Credit Scores

Lately, I've been seeing a large number of credit score ads on TV where they try and convince people that they need regular and up to date info on their credit scores. This bugs me.

The credit score system, for good or bad, is set up with a variety of things geared for the most part to determine an individual's or organization's credit trustworthiness when determining whether or not to grant credit, and at what rates. They also have a few bonus features that not all people are aware of. First is that it holds a collection of your credit histories, including where you have made purchases, what your holdings are in a given country and your spending habits. They also have all of your primary identification listings, which can be used to copy an identity perfectly.

Now the big credit companies, Transunion and Equifax in Canada, and again fro good or bad, have a fair amount of scrutiny on the security of the data they hold, which is about as complete a picture as you can paint on most people. Which brings us to where I am heading.

The free credit score companies are actually data aggregators, otherwise known as data mining companies. What they do is obtain whatever info they can possibly assemble on individuals and sell the data off to advertisers, insurers and anyone else who is looking for a certain level of data...of which there are many. By requesting a score from these companies, people are granting access to these companies for their complete credit profiles. What's worse, is that these companies have significantly less oversight than the actual credit companies, and a data breach would result in significant risk of identity theft for anyone who has data stored with them. It gets even more problematic, as these data miners sell of your data to even other organizations, leading to a greater loss of control over the security of your personal information.

The worst part is that free credit scores can be requested, usually for free once per year by the major credit agencies in most countries.

Blog post is courtesy Elemental Investigations: Private Investigator Edmonton, an Edmonton, Canada based private investigator agency. They can be found online at www.elementalpi.ca

Threat Risk Assessments-Factors for Consideration

Threat Risk Assessments (TRAs) come in a wide variety of flavours. They can be general or specific, focussing on a limited location or range of activities.

Considering the variation, one would expect a wide range of factors which should be considered in a discussion of TRAs, and you are largely right. There is however, a fairly stable list of prime factors which should be considered for most general TRAs.

Many of the primary factors which should be considered in a general TRA should include the following:

• Information Management - Files, garbage management, access controls and authorizations
• IT Networks - All electronic communications and data storage capabilities. These are often a separate TRA within the overall TRA due to the size of this file
• Moral Considerations - Perceptions, codes of conduct public relations and employee interactions all play a role here
• Personnel - This is affected by things like labour issues, training, turn-over and criminality
• Market/Industry Factors - This includes the general methods of the industry, and the vulnerability your organization can face from your colleagues and competitors in a modern environment
• Physical Threats (Mobile) - These include fleets and mobile structures, as well as leased or rented movable infrastructure 
• Physical Threats (Fixed) - This includes all fixed and semi-permanent structures and fixtures

This is not an exhaustive list, but it does serve to illustrate a few of the more important considerations you should be looking for in your completed TRA. Contact a local security provider to find out more.

Blogging by Elemental Investigations: Private Investigator Edmonton, a private investigations agency serving Ottawa, Canada and the surrounding area.