Keystone Investigative Services’ Kelly Cory is headed to the Capitol as President of the National Council of Investigation and Security Services to represent the investigative and legal professions with legislative advocacy.
With the current landscape of privacy advocates, there have been a flood of laws to help protect personal identifying information on records. Often these bills are made without considering the implications of how it will impact the ability to conduct lawful investigations for the legal administration of justice, or help society with real issues that require investigations.
As an example, a recent California law requires the court removal of dates of birth from criminal records. How can you background check someone applying for a job where their criminal background would be relevant (ex: criminal predators applying for jobs at schools, someone with financial crimes applying to manage your money, etc.)? By not allowing investigators access to DMV records, it hampers finding missing persons, stolen vehicles, and investigating fraud. If we cannot review available personal identifiers, how can we determine if specific records pertain to a particular person with a common name (identifying heirs on an estate matter for instance)? There are many many more implications of restricted access to data. Privacy laws are good in nature, but they need to be worded in a way that does not inadvertently exclude legal investigations.
This is why it is paramount for us to campaign for the investigative and security professions by educating our lawmakers on what we do and the importance of our roles in society. Most lawmakers only understand what they see on TV about investigations, much of which is fiction. Law enforcement does not handle civil matters. Nearly all civil cases have needs for investigations.
Kelly Cory is heading to Sacramento this month to meet with California legislatures with the California Association of Licensed Investigators, and will be on Capitol Hill in Washington D. C. to do the same in May with the National Council of Investigation and Security Services. We appreciate the sacrifices and work that many of us do to ensure investigations can remain a valuable benefit to the clients we serve.