Miami Private InvestigationsA licensed investigator is not a private police officer. A Florida licence authorises investigative work; it does not grant access to protected records, and it does not create an exception to any criminal statute. Anyone who tells you otherwise is either breaking the law or selling you something they cannot deliver.
This page is deliberately blunt about the limits, because the limits are what make an investigation useful. Evidence gathered unlawfully can be excluded, can expose you to liability, and can hand the other side a reason to attack everything else in your case.
Phone records and text messages
An investigator cannot obtain someone else’s call detail records, text message contents or account data from a carrier. Providers disclose that material to legal process — a subpoena, a court order, or a law enforcement request — not to investigators. Federal law restricts what a provider may hand over voluntarily, and obtaining records by pretending to be the account holder is a separate offence.
The lawful route: your attorney subpoenas the records in your case. Our job is to give your attorney the identifiers and the factual basis that makes that subpoena targeted and defensible.
Bank accounts, balances and account statements
Account numbers, balances and statements are protected. Calling a bank and impersonating the customer — the practice known as pretexting — is prohibited by federal law, and it is one of the fastest ways to destroy a case and create criminal exposure.
The lawful route: public records, corporate filings, property and lien records, court judgments, UCC filings and litigation history frequently establish that assets exist and where they are held. That is enough for your attorney to subpoena the specifics. See background investigations.
Recording a conversation you are not part of
Florida is an all-party consent state for oral communications. Under s. 934.03(2)(d), F.S., an interception is lawful only when all parties have given prior consent, and s. 934.02(2), F.S. defines a protected oral communication as one uttered with an expectation that it is not being intercepted. Section 934.06, F.S. then bars the contents of an unlawfully intercepted communication from being received in evidence, and s. 934.10, F.S. gives the person recorded a civil cause of action.
So an unlawful recording is worse than useless: it is inadmissible and actionable against the person who made it.
The lawful route: video surveillance without audio in places where there is no expectation of privacy. It is the reason professional surveillance is filmed, not recorded.
Hacking, passwords and “just checking” an account
Logging into someone’s email, cloud storage, social account or phone backup without authorisation is a crime under both Florida and federal law — including when you know the password, and including when the account belongs to a spouse. Spyware installed on another adult’s phone falls in the same category.
Trackers on vehicles you do not own
Placing a tracking device on another person’s vehicle without their knowledge and consent is unlawful in Florida. A licence does not change that. We do not place trackers for clients, and we will tell you so on the first call.
Driver and vehicle records without a permitted purpose
Motor vehicle record data is governed by the federal Driver’s Privacy Protection Act, which allows access only for enumerated permitted purposes. Curiosity, suspicion and “I just want to know who she is seeing” are not among them. We cover this in detail in can a private investigator run a license plate in Florida.
Credit reports
A consumer credit report may only be obtained for a permissible purpose under the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act, with the consumer’s authorisation where one is required. “Pull his credit” is not a service a lawful investigator offers.
Anything that requires impersonating law enforcement
Under s. 843.08, F.S. — false personation — falsely pretending to be a law enforcement officer is a criminal offence. Investigators identify themselves truthfully or not at all. We do not carry a badge, we cannot detain anyone, and we cannot compel a person to answer a question.
Trespass, mail and entry
No entering a home, a fenced yard, a locked office or a gated community without authority. No opening, intercepting or going through another person’s mail. Surveillance is conducted from places the investigator is lawfully entitled to be.
What a licensed investigator in Florida can do
- Surveillance — documented, time-stamped video of what a person does in public view.
- Locating people — skip tracing through lawful databases, public records and field verification.
- Public record research — courts, property, corporate, licensing, liens, judgments, probate.
- Open source intelligence — what a person has published themselves, captured properly. See OSINT investigations.
- Background investigations — identity, criminal history, employment and credential verification, with the subject’s authorisation where the law requires it.
- Witness work — locating witnesses, taking recorded statements with consent, serving process.
- Testimony — a licensed investigator can testify to what they personally observed and documented. See can a private investigator testify in court in Florida.
How to tell whether you are talking to a professional
Ask the question you actually came with and listen to the answer. A firm that says yes to phone records, bank balances or a tracker on someone else’s car is telling you how it will handle your case: by exposing you. A firm that explains the boundary and then maps the lawful path to the same answer is telling you something more useful.
Miami Private Investigations is licensed in Florida under agency licence A1800135 and works across Miami-Dade and statewide. If you are not sure whether what you need is lawful, ask us before you do it yourself — that conversation is the cheapest part of any case. Call (305) 686-7826 or contact us for a confidential consultation.