Here at Delta 74 Private Investigations we get a lot of calls which can sometimes lead to a prospective client unhappily turning away from our services, simply because we can’t do everything they’ve seen on television. So, for this month’s blog I want to discuss what surveillance can’t do.
Thankfully we are back up and running and nearly as busy as before the lockdown and Coronavirus, but the calls are still the same. If you’re thinking of hiring a private surveillance company or private investigator, then please read on to find out about how we wouldn’t be able to support you.
With our phones now being extensions of ourselves, we keep all of our secrets hidden on those smart devices. Naturally this is the one piece of technology that a lot of people want to exploit for information. However, we will not touch a smart phone or tablet as it is such a sensitive area.
Common requests include:
Locating someone via their phone (commonly called ‘pinging’) which we cannot do because we don’t have that technology, its highly unethical and it’s a massive breach of the data protection act.
Remotely looking into someone’s phone messages, including Whatsapp. Delta 74 can’t hack into your partners phone to look at certain messages, photos or their Whatsapp and its data at all.
Looking to recover deleted data such as messages, photos and videos. Sometimes this is a ‘I want to know what has been deleted’ and not even a given that there is something to be found. Again, this is something we can’t do at all.
Some companies can do certain things with mobile phones however as a client/customer you have to own the device and pay the bill for the device.
European Court of Human Rights Article 8. Right to respect for private and family life.
This states that everyone has the right to privacy in their home and in their correspondence.
What we do as a private surveillance company, is effectively act as discreet mobile CCTV cameras. If it was illegal to film in public spaces than CCTV would not exist and we act on the same principle.
Often during surveillance our subject will enter a private household or office space and we cannot record within that area. On numerous occasions we have been asked to sneak up and peek into windows or gain a vantage point looking into a window which we simply cannot do at all.
At best what we could record is what could be seen in a window from the street with the naked eye, this is still highly immoral. Its means we can’t use the zoom function on our cameras or as is usually the case, trespass to get a closer look.
How do we beat this? We focus heavily on the front door. As soon as they come out of the front door, we can record those actions as this usually can been seen from the pavement. Of course, this isn’t always the case but playing by the rules doesn’t mean we miss anything that happens whilst we are on a surveillance task.
As a surveillance team we are there to give a fly on the wall view of what happens. Whether it’s a cheating partner case or a large corporate surveillance task we can only show a true reflection of what happens and not bend the truth.
In the early days of insurance surveillance work, often operatives would knock over dustbins or lay rubbish out in front gardens to set the scene ready for activity. This would let the team gain footage of someone bending over when their claim states they have a back injury for example.
This will not give a true reflection of a person’s behaviour and therefore is not what a surveillance team is there to achieve. We can’t make someone cheat or do something that is anticipated by our client so when it does happen on our watch it is a true representation of the subject of investigation.
I hope that this clears up our limitations and whilst a business should not give negatives, we never make false promises and if we can’t do something we will say so.
As always if you have any questions about how we can help please give us a call on 0800 774 7241 for free advice and to get your case started.
I thank you for taking time to read this month’s blog and I hope you are keeping safe and well as the current situation with Covid-19 continues to unfold.
Dan
Delta 74 Private Investigations Ltd
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The Old Vicarage
Market Place
Castle Donington
Derby
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