What to tell a private investigator matters as much as what you bring to the first conversation. A licensed investigator can only build a lawful, effective plan around the facts you actually give them, not the ones you decide are safe to share.
This guide covers what to disclose even when it’s uncomfortable, the lawful-purpose line every licensed investigator has to hold, what happens to what you say once it’s shared, and what full candour actually gets you in the finished file. None of it is about handing over more than necessary for its own sake — it’s about understanding what actually shapes an investigator’s ability to help.
The Disclosure Decision: Why What You Say Matters as Much as What You Bring
Discreet Investigations is led by Founder, President & CEO James Glanville, who has worked in the investigations field for more than 35 years since the firm’s founding in 1989. Every investigator we assign to a file holds an individual licence under Ontario law, personally accountable under Section 6 of the Private Security and Investigative Services Act, 2005. Because you’re speaking with a named, licensed person rather than an anonymous service, what you disclose to them carries real weight in shaping what they can lawfully do for you.
That standard of candour runs both ways. Ontario’s Code of Conduct for licensees, O. Reg. 363/07, s. 2(1)(a), binds every investigator to act with honesty and integrity in every engagement. The disclosure this guide asks of a client isn’t a one-sided demand — the investigator is legally bound to the same standard.
That combination matters in practice. A named, licensed investigator answerable to a Code of Conduct has more to lose from cutting corners than an anonymous operator does, and that accountability is exactly why what you tell them shapes what they can responsibly commit to. An investigator working from a partial account isn’t being cautious by holding back a recommendation. They’re working with less information than the law expects them to have.
What follows covers what that standard means in practice, starting with the parts of your situation that are hardest to say out loud.
What to Tell Your Investigator, Even When It’s Uncomfortable
Full disclosure means telling your investigator the parts that feel embarrassing, self-incriminating, or simply hard to say. A scope built on a partial account is a scope built to miss the thing you actually need to know.
- Prior incidents relevant to the situation. Even when they reflect poorly on you, a licensed investigator needs the full history to scope realistic, lawful methods around your actual circumstances. Leaving out a relevant incident doesn’t make it disappear from the file — it just means the investigator finds out later, on their own terms instead of yours.
- Facts the other party may already know or could raise. An investigator caught off guard by a fact you withheld can’t prepare for it, and neither can you. A fact that surfaces from the other side, rather than from you, tends to look worse than the same fact disclosed upfront.
- The real objective behind the engagement. Naming what you actually want to find out, not a softened version of it, lets the investigator recommend the right approach from the start. A vague or partial objective can produce a scope that technically answers the question you asked without answering the one you actually meant.
- Anything new or contradicting that surfaces once the file is open. Tell your investigator right away rather than after the report is finished. A licensed investigator can adjust scope and methods mid-engagement, but only if they know what’s actually changed, and a late disclosure limits how much of that adjustment is still possible.
There’s a practical reason candour matters beyond the relationship with your investigator. Under section 31.1 of the Canada Evidence Act, whoever wants a court to rely on an electronic document carries the burden of proving it’s authentic. That’s the same authentication standard that ultimately governs anything an investigation produces, if it’s ever relied on in a legal proceeding.
When a client leaves out or shades a fact, the account an investigator builds around it is more likely to contain a gap or inconsistency that undermines that authentication case. Complete candour up front protects the strength of what the investigation eventually produces. That protection extends beyond the working relationship between you and your investigator, into whatever the file is ultimately used for.
That authentication standard sits in the background of every engagement, whether or not a case ever reaches a courtroom. Honesty at the outset is what keeps a file consistent enough to meet it, if it ever needs to.
The Lawful-Purpose Line: What a Licensed Investigator Must Decline
Honesty about your objective is what lets an investigator screen it for lawfulness before any work begins. That screening isn’t a formality — it’s a legal duty built into the licence itself.
- The duty to decline an unlawful objective is written into the regulation, not left to individual judgment. O. Reg. 363/07, s. 2(1)(g) requires every licensee to refrain from behaviour that is either prohibited or not authorized by law. If the actual purpose behind a request is unlawful, a licensed investigator must decline it, regardless of how the request is initially framed.
- That duty carries real regulatory weight, not just professional courtesy. Under s. 1 of the same regulation, a licensee is in breach of the Code of Conduct simply by failing to comply with any of its provisions, including the duty to refrain from unlawful behaviour. That’s a meaningful backstop: a client can’t fairly object to an investigator asking probing questions about intent, since asking those questions is what the Code of Conduct actually requires.
- The screening only works if you’re honest about what you actually want. An investigator can only test a stated purpose for lawfulness against the purpose you give them. Framing a request vaguely, or leaving out the real goal, doesn’t change what the law requires. It just delays the point where the investigator finds out, and by then the file may already reflect an objective they were never in a position to lawfully pursue.
What Happens to What You Tell Us: No Privilege, and Where a File Can End Up
A private investigator is not a lawyer, which surprises some clients who assume any conversation with an investigator carries the same protection as one with counsel. Information you share directly with an investigator is generally not covered by solicitor-client privilege, which the Canadian Bar Association describes as protecting only communication between a lawyer and a client seeking legal advice. Litigation privilege is broader and can extend to a third party such as an investigator, but only where the work was created for the dominant purpose of preparing for litigation — in practice, that generally means retaining the investigator through your lawyer, not directly.
What you disclose isn’t unprotected, either. Ontario’s Code of Conduct requires a licensed investigator to treat information received on the job as confidential, under O. Reg. 363/07, s. 2(1)(h) — a licensing condition, not just professional courtesy, though a file can still be compelled into a legal proceeding as a business record. See our consultation guide for the full walkthrough of what that confidentiality duty does and doesn’t cover.
What Full Disclosure Gets You
When a client is fully forthcoming from the first conversation, the investigation gets scoped more precisely. The methods an investigator chooses are more likely to be lawful and proportionate to what’s actually needed, and the resulting record holds together better if it’s ever relied on. That’s the practical payoff of full disclosure, not an abstract virtue.
The reverse is also true. A client who holds back a relevant fact isn’t protecting themselves from the investigator. They’re limiting what the investigator can lawfully and effectively do on their behalf, often finding that out at the point it’s hardest to fix.
As licensed PSISA investigators, we’ve built our practice around treating a client’s full disclosure, including the uncomfortable parts, as an asset to the case rather than a liability to the relationship. The questions we ask at intake are there to help you tell us the whole picture, not to catch you out. To talk through your situation, call +1 (888) 680-0036 or visit our surveillance services page.
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