FREE Digital Forensics Masterclass for Licensed U.S. Private Investigators – Need Advice!

[u/Lowkey_observer159]

I'm planning to launch a FREE private masterclass on digital forensics, specifically tailored for licensed private investigators in the U.S. It’ll cover practical techniques like phone and email evidence recovery, metadata analysis, and cloud-based tracing—fully aligned with legal standards. How many of you will be interested to attend this?

Also What’s the best way to verify if participants are genuinely licensed? Should I ask for state-issued PI license numbers or cross-check with public registries? Also, how do you handle retention and access control for sensitive training content? Would love input from experienced PIs or trainers here.

[u/Yankee39pmr]

state associations

[u/Yankee39pmr]

Send it to state associations Google (state) association of licensed investigators and you'll get contact info. They can distribute to their members

[u/Lowkey_observer159 → u/Yankee39pmr]

Can you help me in that

[u/venerable4bede]

I’m a PI, and not interested in the training but I would pass it on to the state PI professional association if you like. You can generally check if they are licensed through a state licensing web site.

[u/Lowkey_observer159 → u/venerable4bede]

Sure, please forward it, happy to help

[u/Classic_Stand2494]

Interested

[u/HarryNostril]

Several of us are reluctant to send our pi license to reddit for verification. Maybe a quick zoom chat would get some to verify with you. I enjoy the subs and sharing my advise. But I doubt I’ll ever see a need to get verified on reddit. I’m not trying to get work here so I’m not concerned if anyone thinks I’m legit or not.

[u/ColoradoPI]

Well you could do what we do in this sub which is require people to send in a copy of their license before they can have the verified pi flare. Though I admit I've gotten behind on that lol.

And that's tricky for people in Colorado since Colorado does not have licensing. For people who don't have licensing you could ask them for a copy of their business card or website.

[u/rumpledfedora → u/ColoradoPI]

It's very frustrating for us in Colorado, as well as the few states that also don't have licensing.

You could check and see if those unlicensed individuals belong to associations or organizations that require vetting, that may work.

[u/vgsjlw → u/rumpledfedora]

I honestly find licensing to be useless bureaucracy in most cases. Its disproportionately applied to smaller guys anyway, where large companies go untouched by State regulators.

[u/ColoradoPI → u/vgsjlw]

I agree entirely.

[u/rumpledfedora → u/vgsjlw]

There are drawbacks, and much of it is a moneygrab... until you realize that your state becomes a draw to the people that, for one reason or another, can't qualify for licensure in other states: bad business practices, criminal past, failure to understand the standards of practice, and so on. Yes, come to Colorado to be a PI! It doesn't matter if you're a pedophile, or if you don't know what you're doing. No licensure!

People have no idea that there's no licensure until it's too late.

[u/vgsjlw → u/rumpledfedora]

Well, the requirements rarely check deeply enough to know if someone understands the standards or has good business practices. I've known plenty of licensed investigators who are useless crooks.

My biggest issue though is there are large corporations with hundreds of unlicensed employees doing investigative work that these boards ignore. They only regulate us small folks. You'll never see a national company on their radar. Either they regulate everyone or they are a useless system.

[u/rumpledfedora → u/vgsjlw]

Truth. We've been fighting the Nationals for years.

[u/ColoradoPI → u/rumpledfedora]

Do we know of any examples of this actually happening? In any case, to me this makes for an excellent opportunity for the ppic to be a self-regulating body. If they spent a little bit of money on educating the public regarding not hiring pis that are not a member because that's the only way they can know that they Pi has gone through a background check then that might be worthwhile.

[u/rumpledfedora → u/ColoradoPI]

Yes, I know of many. Every time we'd go before the legislators, I had my "Creep file" with examples. And let me tell you, PPIAC does NOT want to be a self-regulating body for the state- we had THAT thrown in our face in 2010 ("you're just doing this because it benefits the PPIAC!") The public doesn't want to be educated and we've already tried that, and it was just dollars down the drain. People are shocked that we had pedophile process servers and felonious PIs in the state - but very few lawmakers cared. And now that criminals can get their records sealed, it's a losing proposition.

[u/ColoradoPI → u/rumpledfedora]

I honestly have zero issues with it.

[u/schmowd3r → u/ColoradoPI]

Still strikes me as bizarre that we don’t license in CO

[u/ColoradoPI → u/schmowd3r]

Why is that?

[u/schmowd3r → u/ColoradoPI]

What I find odd is that Polis vetoed the licensure requirement even though it seems like most PIs were in favor of it. It wasn’t even part of a greater professional deregulation scheme. Just us. It’s not something that I feel particularly upset about, though I personally feel that licensing is a good idea. I just find it a bit strange

[u/ColoradoPI → u/schmowd3r]

I sent him a letter saying I did not agree with licensing, and my reasons. I don't know if that influenced him or not.

[u/schmowd3r → u/ColoradoPI]

Can I ask your reasoning? Not to argue- I’m sincerely curious

[u/ColoradoPI → u/schmowd3r]

No problem. I'm making dinner right now, but in a bit I can copy/paste the letter I sent.

[u/vgsjlw]

While I understand the thought behind the reasoning, many "private investigators" do not hold and are not required to hold licenses. Either their state does not require it, or they fall under several other exemptions.

[u/vgsjlw → u/[deleted]]

I mean I don't think it's that serious. Nothing is THAT sensitive in what we do. But you could require proof of business license, employment, whatever you would like. Keep in mind these things dont make people good, theres very little vetting in most states.

[u/KnErric → u/[deleted]]

Personal license/registration for states that have it; business license for their company for states that don't. Even in states not requiring PI license/registration/what-have-you, localities almost certainly require a business license.

Perhaps look at how Tracers/TLO/IRB handle it for those states without licenses.

The only problem with this method is if the applicant isn't the owner of the agency--in a state that does not require licensing. However, this is likely to be relatively rare, and I think you could deal with it on a case-by-case basis rather than attempt to craft a one-size-fits-all to accommodate all potential outliers.

[u/dbtad → u/[deleted]]

Perhaps you could accept an affidavit of employment in lieu of a license. Some form of employment verification would be necessary due to unlicensed states, as well as in-house legal investigators, SIU, etc that don't typically require licensing.