New resource - Licensing (help needed!)

For investigators in the US, check out CRIME TIME.COM. This site provides a State by State directory of Private Investigator (Detective) Licensing links including links to respective State and/or local laws. This is not exactly for Computer Forensic Investigators, but it will help you determine if this is an additional Licensing requirement that may impact your practice.

Very useful, thanks!

Further posts welcome everyone -)

Check out http//www.thekesslernotebook.com/. There's a survey of US state attorney generals with each state’s licensing requirements as a private investigator when practicing forensic accounting or computer forensics.

A clickable map of states is here, http//www.investigation.com/surveymap/surveymap.html. Click on your state of interest, and see a letter from the state AG's office.

Enjoy!
Jim

Brilliant, very useful indeed! Thank you, Jim.

Just a quick note to others - this isn't limited to the US by any means, if you have info for other countries please let me know.

Jamie

As a passing thought, read the state laws closely - or better yet, have your friends in your legal department do it for you.

I work in corporate livery (even if it be a polo shirt and topsiders). My employer does business in several states. Most of those states have no licensing requirements for computer forensic analysts. Two of those states do have requirements when done for hire, but so long as I restrict my work to our corporately owned equipment on our corporate property, I'm not required to license in those states. The laws also do not prevent me from being a factual witness ( I found *this* on that computer), or creator of internal business reports within those limitations. This probably doesn't help folks in the forensic consulting business, but…

I'm really, really curious as to how Georgia views law enforcement forensic analysts after reading their statute, as it looks like they only license "companies" for private investigation. Maybe somewhere else in the Georgia code they come up with a definition of a state law enforcement agency as a company. )

Your mileage may vary (and is likely to)!
Enjoy!
Jim

I recently went and reviewed the licensing laws in every state since it is of interest to me. Some states, such as Montana and Colorado, have no PI licensing laws.

Others are rubber stamps of the same code used in may states and subject to the interpretation of the licensing boards attorney.

PA's law is 35 years out of date.

BTW I just posted on this issue again on my blog. )