How to Choose a Private Investigator in Ontario

Choosing a private investigator in Ontario means comparing licensed professionals against unlicensed operators who make the same promises. This guide sets out the checkable criteria, licensing, insurance, specialty fit, and court-readiness, that separate one from the other.

Ontario maintains a public registry of every licensed private investigator and licensed agency, so the comparison can start from what the regulatory record shows, rather than from a sales pitch. This guide walks through the individual-versus-business licence distinction, insurance and bonding, specialty fit, court-readiness, and the red flags that should rule an investigator out.

What You’re Really Deciding When You Compare Investigators

Discreet Investigations has operated under Ontario’s licensing regime since founding the firm in 1989. Its principal investigator, James M. Glanville, brings more than 35 years of field experience (1989–2026) across surveillance, fraud, family-law evidence, executive protection, and undercover work, and our investigators apply that same comparison standard to their own casework. That kind of sustained, checkable record is what a client can weigh against any investigator under consideration.

Comparing investigators comes down to a short list of checkable facts, not first impressions. The list includes a current individual licence, a separately licensed agency where one is involved, adequate insurance, and documentation habits built to survive being tested in court. Ontario’s registry runs three separate lookups: individual licence status, agency licence status, and employer registration status. A personal credential and an agency’s licence can be checked independently, rather than assumed to be one and the same.

Individual Licence or Business Licence: Who You’re Actually Hiring

Section 6 of Ontario’s Private Security and Investigative Services Act, 2005 bars anyone from acting as, or holding themselves out as, a private investigator without a valid individual licence. A parallel provision requires any business that sells investigative services to hold its own agency licence. The person you’re speaking with and the firm they work for can each be licensed, unlicensed, or one without the other.

Ontario’s own guidance on agency responsibility is direct. Agencies are “not responsible for obtaining licences for their security guards or private investigators,” so individuals must obtain and renew their own, according to the Ministry’s requirements for security guard and private investigator agencies. Yet if an employee works without a valid individual licence, the agency they work for may also face charges. That is exactly why both halves of the licence, the person and, where one applies, the agency, are worth checking independently.

A few situations are worth knowing before you compare licences side by side:

• A sole proprietor can personally hold both the individual licence and the business or agency licence, so “who you’re hiring” can be one person wearing both hats.
• An investigator who works entirely alone, with no agency involved, only needs to produce the individual licence.
• An investigator who works through an agency should be able to name that agency and confirm it holds its own separate licence.

For the step-by-step registry search that confirms a specific licence is current, see what to expect at a first PI consultation, which walks through the process in detail.

Why Insurance and Bonding Should Be Non-Negotiable

An Ontario agency licence application requires proof of a Certificate of Commercial General Liability Insurance with a minimum of $2,000,000 per occurrence, according to the Ministry’s agency-licence requirements. That is a concrete, verifiable figure, not a vague assurance, and a client can ask any agency-affiliated investigator to confirm it directly.

Bonding works differently. Ontario’s agency-licence guidance sets the insurance minimum but does not itself require a surety bond, so bonding is not something the law forces every competitor to carry. When a firm advertises “Licensed · Insured · Bonded,” as Discreet Investigations does, the bonding piece is voluntary. It is an added layer of client protection worth asking any investigator under consideration whether they carry.

Before hiring, ask to see:

• A Certificate of Commercial General Liability Insurance naming a minimum of $2,000,000 per occurrence, for any agency-affiliated investigator
• Confirmation of bonding, since it is not a licensing requirement the way insurance is
• Documentation rather than a verbal assurance that coverage exists

Matching an Investigator’s Specialty to Your Case

Case-type fit is a real differentiator, not marketing language. Discreet Investigations’ own principal investigator describes qualification across six distinct investigative disciplines. A client can reasonably expect any investigator under consideration to name a comparable set of disciplines, and say plainly which ones apply to the case at hand.

One nuance is worth knowing before you compare a dedicated investigator against a security firm that also offers investigative work as a side line. Ontario’s individual-licence rules allow a person to hold a dual security-guard-and-private-investigator licence, but they explicitly bar that person from working both roles at the same time. A dual licensee and a dedicated investigator are not interchangeable for a given engagement.

Can They Produce Evidence That Holds Up in Court?

Court-readiness is a checkable claim, not a matter of trust. Discreet Investigations describes its own report standard directly. Evidence collected by a licensed investigator following Ontario law is built to be court-admissible, with signed, timestamped surveillance logs formatted to meet Ontario evidentiary standards. That is the kind of concrete claim worth asking any investigator under consideration to substantiate, rather than taking it on faith.

Under Section 31.1 of the Canada Evidence Act, whoever wants to admit an electronic document as evidence carries the burden of proving it is authentic. That covers a surveillance video, a GPS log, or a timestamped photograph. An investigator’s documentation habits, timestamps, an unbroken chain of custody, and source notes, are what let that burden be met later, in front of a judge who was not there. The practical screening question is narrower than asking whether it is legal: ask whether the investigator’s standard report bakes in those same elements. Full admissibility depth, including report structure and chain-of-custody formatting, lives in what a surveillance report actually documents.

Red Flags That Should Rule an Investigator Out

Ontario’s Code of Conduct for licensees, O. Reg. 363/07, made under the PSISA, requires honesty and integrity from every individual licensee. It also bars behaviour that is prohibited or simply not authorized by law. The same Code requires licensees to treat information received on the job as confidential, except where disclosure is required by the work itself or by law. An investigator who crosses either line during a sales conversation is showing you exactly how they will handle your file later.

The stakes behind a licence question are not abstract. Section 45 of the PSISA makes an individual convicted of an offence liable to a fine of up to $25,000, up to one year’s imprisonment, or both. A business entity convicted of the same offence faces a fine of up to $250,000. Those are statutory penalties, not a cost of doing business. An investigator who waves off a licence question is asking a client to absorb real legal exposure.

Rule out any investigator who:

• Proposes an approach that sounds like it crosses a legal line, such as hacking an account, trespassing, or impersonation
• Shares details of other clients’ cases to build credibility
• Hesitates to produce a licence number, or cannot produce one at all
• Waves off a direct question about licensing or insurance as unnecessary paperwork

What This Means for You

Every legal anchor in this guide is Ontario or federal Canadian law. The licence requirements come from the PSISA, the professional-conduct duties come from O. Reg. 363/07, and the evidence-authenticity standard comes from the federal Canada Evidence Act. A licence issued under the PSISA authorizes investigative work within Ontario only. These criteria do not automatically carry over to an investigator licensed in another province or country.

Discreet Investigations states its own operating boundary in plain terms: investigators document only what is visible from a public vantage point. They will not trespass, climb fences, look through windows from private land, or use technical means to get inside a residence. That is the same boundary a client should expect any properly licensed Ontario investigator to hold to.

As licensed PSISA investigators in Ontario, we hold to that same boundary on every file, whether or not a client asks us to. A client evaluating any investigator against the criteria in this guide can apply the same checklist to our own credentials. To talk through your situation, call +1 (888) 680-0036 or visit our surveillance services page.

Licensed · Insured · Bonded.