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Responsibilities of a licence or certificate holder

This section covers the following:

Presenting your licence or certificate of approval

If requested, you must provide your licence or certificate of approval to: 

  • the Licensing Authority
  • a police officer
  • a person authorised by the chief investigator of the Complaints, Investigation, and Prosecution Unit
  • any person you’re dealing with in the private security business to which your licence or certificate relates.

Failure to produce your licence or certificate on demand is an offence, and is liable on summary conviction to a fine of up to $2,000.

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Providing the name and address of your employer

If you hold a certificate of approval, you must supply the name and address of your employer if requested by one of the groups above.
Failure to do so is an offence. On summary conviction, you could be fined up to $2,000.

Wearing an identification (ID) badge 

If you hold an individual licence or a certificate of approval, the Licensing Authority will give you an ID badge. This badge has:

  • your unique identity number
  • your photograph
  • the class(es) of work that you’re authorised to carry out
  • an expiry date.

If you hold an individual licence or certificate of approval, your ID badge must be visible at all times when working.

Failure to do so is an offence. On summary conviction, you could be fined up to $2,000.

There are two exceptions.

  • You don’t have to wear an ID badge if you reasonably believe that doing so would threaten your or other people’s safety.
  • You don’t have to wear a badge if you’re a private investigator (for this reason private investigators will not get an ID badge if that is the only class they apply for).

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Keeping records

A licence or certificate holder, or anyone who employs or engages a crowd controller, must keep appropriate records e.g. records of training, employment records. You must allow access to such records by the Police or the Complaints, Investigation, and Prosecution Unit.

Failure to do so is an offence. On summary conviction, you could be fined up to $2,000.

Providing updated information

Certificate holders must advise the Licensing Authority of:

  • any changes to name or address
  • if any ground of disqualification come to apply to them during the certificate period.

Failure to do so is an offence. On summary conviction, you could be fined up to $2,000.

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Training requirements 

Crowd controllers, property guards and personal guards will need to be trained in the future. However, from 1 April 2011, they won’t need to complete training to get a certificate or an individual licence.

Training does not need to be done until training regulations come into force (this will be later, at a time to be advised).

Those regulations will set up minimum training requirements for people working as crowd controllers, property guards, and personal guards. This is because these groups interact with the public in situations where conflict is a risk and the training will prevent harm to them or to members of the public.

When the regulations come into force people will be given reasonable time to complete the training. This means they can continue to work while they train.

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Special responsibilities of private investigators

As a licensed private investigator, you must display the following information on all notices, advertisements, and other publications connected with your business.

  • Your (the licensees) name
  • The fact you hold a licence as a private investigator, and
  • If the business is not carried out under your name the name under which you carry out the business.

This information must be shown on all notices, letters, accounts, advertisements, and other publications issued in connection with your business (by you or on behalf of you).

Find out more about the information that you must display.

Code of conduct for private investigators

The code of conduct (the code) comes into force on 1 April 2011. It applies to all private investigators and private investigator employees as defined under the Private Security Personnel and Private Investigators Act 2010.

The code imposes requirements on private investigators when undertaking surveillance of an individual.

The code does not limit or affect any other law. For example, the code does not override the existing law regarding trespass or the use of interception devices. Existing laws continue to apply to private investigators in the same way that they apply to all other people.

Breaching the code is grounds for a complaint to the Licensing Authority, which has a disciplinary function. Sanctions range in seriousness from a reprimand to suspending or cancelling a licence or certificate.

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Application of the code to specific situations

A private investigator may not:

  • photograph or make other recordings of a person who is in a house, or other similar place used for residential purposes, without the consent of all the occupants. The code does not prevent a private investigator from simply observing a person inside a house, or other similar place, with their naked eye from a public place.
  • photograph or make other recordings of a person who is on private property (which does not include a house or other similar place used for residential purposes) without the consent of every lawful occupier of that private property. However, a private investigator may take photographs or make other recordings of a person who is on private property if the private investigator is in a public place and the person’s actions can be observed with the naked eye from that public place. For example, a private investigator may not, without the consent of an employer, enter a work place that is on private property to photograph employees. However, the private investigator may, with or without the consent of an employer, photograph an employee who can be seen from a public place without using any visual surveillance device.

A private investigator may, with or without the consent of the occupants of a house, photograph or make other recordings of a person working in the garden around a house if the person can be seen from a public area without using any equipment, such as a ladder, or any visual surveillance device.

The code does not place any restrictions on the surveillance of an individual who is in a public place. Note though, that the general law still applies to the actions of the private investigator.

The code:

  • sets out restrictions on when a private investigator can install a surveillance device. If a private investigator wishes to install a surveillance device in a house or on any private property, the lawful occupiers of the house or the private property must consent. In the case of personal property, such as a motor vehicle, a private investigator may not install surveillance equipment, for example, a tracking device on the vehicle without the consent of either the owner of the vehicle or the person who has lawful possession of the vehicle.
  • prohibits a private investigator from causing a person who is not a private investigator to act for them in a way that would beach the code if that person had been a private investigator. For example, private investigators cannot get around the code by getting a 3rd party to take photographs for them of a person in a situation where the code would otherwise prevent the private investigators themselves from taking the photographs.

The code of conduct will be enforced though a complaints process. The Licensing Authority may discipline a private investigator if a complaint is lodged. If you breach the code of conduct, you risk losing your licence or certificate of approval.

Refer to the Code of Conduct.

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