A private investigator is a civilian with no special powers.
Everything we can do, you could lawfully do yourself — we are just trained, licensed and accountable for doing it properly. Anyone who implies more than that is selling you something they cannot deliver.
- Licence #B5950
- Limits in writing, before you commit
- British Columbia
- One licensed local company
Most people arrive wanting a person found, a suspicion confirmed, or a record pulled. The useful first question is not what we are willing to do — it is what the law actually allows anyone to do, and whether that gets you the answer you need.
Four kinds of work — each with its own legal footing.
We hold the private investigator licence category, so the scope is whatever that licence lawfully permits. What changes between these four is not the effort — it is the rules that govern them.
Surveillance
Observation and documentation from places anyone is entitled to be, recorded to a written standard — times, positions, what was actually seen, and what was not. The report is built to survive being read by someone who disagrees with it.
Workplace and internal investigations
Theft, misconduct, policy breaches and complaints inside your own organisation — run under BC PIPA, with the consent and notice questions settled before the first interview rather than argued about after.
Background checks and due diligence
Pre-employment and pre-contract screening from sources that are lawfully available, with written consent where the law requires it. We will tell you plainly which checks are possible and which are not.
Locates, skip tracing and process serving
Finding a person who does not want to be found, and serving documents once they are. Two different jobs with two different legal footings — we keep them separate, because courts do.
The limits are the reason to hire us — not a disclaimer at the bottom.
An investigator who lets you believe otherwise is either mistaken or willing to mislead you, and neither is a good position to start from.
- We cannot access CPIC, or any police record system. There is no professional-courtesy channel into one, and no version of this licence that opens one.
- We cannot pull credit reports, bank records or tax records.
- We cannot compel anyone to answer a question, produce a document, or stop what they are doing.
- We cannot enter private property without permission, detain anyone, or search anything.
- We cannot intercept a private communication. The exceptions in the Criminal Code run to other people, not to us.
Evidence that survives being argued with.
Our licence number is on this page
BC does not require a licence number in advertising — we checked the Act, the Regulation and the policy manual. Most BC firms, including association members, do not publish one. Ours is on this page, and you can verify it.
The report is written to be read by the other side
Notes taken at the time, not reconstructed afterwards. Continuity recorded. A stated list of what we did not do. Evidence that cannot survive scrutiny is worse than no evidence, because it costs you the point it was meant to prove.
We say no in writing
If what you want is not lawfully available, you get that in writing before you spend anything — not a quote, an attempt, and an invoice for a result that was never possible.
One licensed company, one point of accountability
The same company that guards your sites and installs your systems. If an investigation touches your cameras or your access logs, nobody has to be introduced to your building first.
Bug sweeps — arranged through a specialist partner.
A genuine sweep needs equipment and training that we do not keep in-house, so we arrange it with a specialist rather than pretend otherwise. We will tell you honestly whether a sweep is the right answer to what you are worried about — and what a negative result does and does not mean, which is the part most people are never told.
From first call to a report you can use.
- 1
Tell us what you are trying to establish
Not what you want done — what you need to know, and what you would do with the answer. Those decide whether an investigation is the right tool at all.
- 2
We tell you what is lawfully possible
In writing, before you commit. That includes saying so when the answer is that nothing lawful will get you what you are after.
- 3
Agreed scope, in writing
What will be done, over what period, and what will not be. Scope creep in an investigation is how a proportionate enquiry turns into an unusable one.
- 4
A report you can act on
Contemporaneous notes, a continuity record, and a plain account of the limits. Yours to take to counsel, to an insurer, or to an internal process.
Eleven guides to this work — including the parts that lose us jobs.
Every figure in these is traced to a primary source, or the article says plainly that it will not print one. Read them before you hire us, or before you hire anybody.
What a BC private investigator can and cannot legally do
The long version of the limits above, every claim traced to the statute it comes from.
Do you need a licensed private investigator, or is your matter exempt?
Some matters do not need a licensed investigator at all. Worth knowing before you hire one.
What drives the cost of a private investigation in BC
Why an hourly rate tells you almost nothing, and what actually moves the number.
Surveillance evidence in BC: when it holds up
What makes footage usable, and the ordinary mistakes that make it worthless.
The surveillance standard we work to, and why
Our own written standard — proportionality, agreed scope, contemporaneous notes, continuity.
Investigating your own employee under BC PIPA
The consent and notice rules that decide whether an internal investigation stands up.
Background checks in BC: what consent you need
What can lawfully be checked, what cannot, and what nobody can legally get you.
Investigating a family matter in BC: what a court will and will not use
The hardest category to get right, and the one where bad evidence does the most damage.
Skip tracing and debt collection are not the same job
Two different legal footings. Confusing them is how people end up in trouble.
Does a process server need a licence in BC?
A short answer to a question asked constantly, with the reasoning behind it.
What a real technical surveillance countermeasures sweep is
What a sweep consists of, and what a negative result does and does not mean.
Tell us what you need to establish.
We will tell you what is lawfully possible before you commit to anything — including when the answer is that nothing lawful will get you there.