Legal Requirements for Detective Agencies

The entry requirements for the detective profession are relatively low, but there are quite a few legal pitfalls in the course of the work. To be permitted to register the business, initially a “clean” certificate of good conduct and an extract from the central trade register without entries are sufficient.

Once the business has been registered, investigations may therefore be conducted. Can one simply proceed without restrictions, or are there certain things to consider? You will surely suspect that the legal situation is not quite so simple. Investigations always interfere with the personal rights of the target individuals, as data about these individuals are collected and passed on and, depending on the assignment and necessity, observations (surveillance) of the persons concerned take place. In order to justify these interferences with personal rights, detectives require a legal justification – the legitimate interest. Kurtz Detective Agency Berlin is of course no exception in this respect and strictly complies with these legal provisions. Detective assignments without a legitimate interest are considered contrary to public policy.

The Legitimate Interest

A legitimate interest may exist quite concretely through a court title (in this context also referred to as a legal interest), but also through other considerations. We speak of a balancing of interests because the legitimate interest must always be weighed against the aforementioned interference with the personal rights of the target individual. Ultimately, the interest is only regarded as “legitimate”, and thus as a justification for the investigation, if it is considered more significant than the target individual’s interest in the protection of their data. Sounds complicated? It is. This balancing of which rights are to be regarded as more significant is actually the responsibility not of detectives and clients, but of legal professionals, above all judges.

How, then, is the balancing of legitimate interest carried out by detective agencies? With the help of common sense and, if this is not sufficient, on the basis of precedent cases. A knowledgeable detective knows exactly what he may and may not do; he knows previous cases in which colleagues in the profession were convicted for breaches of data protection, and he can assess precisely which methods are permissible to obtain evidence admissible in court and to exclude prohibitions on the use of evidence. For reputable investigations, contact the detectives of Kurtz Detective Agency Berlin: +49 30 5557 8641-0.