Page 2 - Investigating for Truth - AFI-LLC Newsletter January 2020

Investigating for Truth - AFI-LLC Newsletter January 2020

Restricting PI Access to Public Records
Growing nationally state by state is the drive of misinformed privacy advocates, legislators, regulators, and even
governors to introduce restrictive - or outright bans - specific to private investigators in various records important to the
work we do for our clients. One such issue are driving records. Driven by misinformation - and worse, assumption -
several online media sources have published misleading stories of states making millions from the selling of personal
data. We will expand on this in an upcoming commentary and newsletter. For now, let's follow the chain of events - 1) a
reporter gained access to a closed PI group on Facebook; 2) discussion included how to legally obtain information from a
source; 3) reporter wrongly assumes the source is state motor vehicle / driver license records - it is not, it is from legally
compliant proprietary sources developed and owned by the provider; 4) multiple stories are published targeting
multiple states and their policy of legal access to public records - unrelated to what was in item #2 point; 5) state
legislatures and regulatory agencies are drafting and introducing legislation to prohibit use by PIs - this includes the
governor of Vermont issuing an executive order specifically banning PIs from access and use of any motor vehicle and
driving record. This is a rapidly growing trend - and it started with irresponsible and unprofessional behavior on social
media platforms.

How Social Media PI Groups May Cause Harm
Which brings us to the next trend we will be presenting soon - how this irresponsible and unprofessional behavior on
social media - and specifically PI groups on Facebook - are causing irreparable damage to our profession. Members of
the groups, and moderators, have defended these actions as being few, minor, or not actually doing any harm.
Unfortunately, most have not been in business - or even alive - long enough to know what has taken place over the last
30, 20 and 10 years. The groups may serve a purpose to socialize - it is social media; however, they are not the place to
learn our skills, professionally network with known and vetted peers, or advocate for legislation and regulations to
protect our profession.

The Value of Associations Keeping You in Business, Networking, and Peer-to-Peer Networking
This brings us to the one of the other related trends we are seeing - recognizing the value of our state and national
associations for continuing education and training, vetted members for our networking and peer to peer growth, and
the importance of advocacy. There is a realization the associations are non-profit and work for the members - actually
for our profession as a whole - and not for the benefit of those volunteer members fulfilling the needs of the association
boards and committees to make things work and happen. Having been involved in multiple state, national, and
international associations - and in every role from committees to mid and top-level leadership, we know the reality is
great personal and financial sacrifice with no personal motive or gain.

Stay tuned - 2020 is going to be an exciting year and strong vision!

First Tip for 2020 - Easy Archival Backup
It is important to backup your records and case files every year and archive them in secure storage. It can also be time
consuming.

If you have Carbonite you can order a backup external harddrive with all of your files - about $100. Bam - backup is
done. No wasting hours and bandwidth making backups.

PS - if you don't backup your files (its cheap) with Carbonite or similar service (we use two and no internal drives, only
external) - you're risking a lot. It also makes transferring files to a new computer very easy.

Having almost lost 30K current folders and files to a glitch once - and being saved by redundant cloud backup - its
important. Its also cheaper than sending a hard-drive off to be extracted (maybe). Yep, did that a couple decades ago
when there was no backup of any kind for personal computers.