Legally financial records can be made available to licensed or certified Investigators (depending on the state/country). (Legislation today made me re-write that sentence several times. Privacy vs. access is being weighed in Congress at this writing.) Investigators and information brokers that deal in background searches specialize in online research, phone interviewing, paper chasing, and finding information. Rooted in hardnose and relentless searching techniques, they were some of the first users of online databases, accessing public records via a computer, an account, and a modem. Investigators learned that by applying the same investigative logic used on the street, they were able to adapt to the online world quickly. Once the Internet became a primarily WWW based graphical environment the Investigative industry was already exploiting the finer points of Internet research. You will see many articles about private information, and the access that private eyes, and information brokers have. Unfortunately a few bad Investigators that may be unlicensed and/or unscrupulous have made a bad name for the industry. For the most part Investigators spend a good deal of their time, personal resources, and effort fighting legislation and bad press in order to keep their industry clean from frauds and bad PI's. The Dick Tracy shroud of mystery that envelopes this industry can often hide the real head lining news like; scam disclosures, deadbeat dads discovered, and projects like Homefires (an International consortium of online PI's that volunteer their time to locate missing children).

The skills Investigators have honed can be used to obtain anything from your financial records to actual video of you in action. Anything and everything about you is possible. Even though laws are in place to protect privacy not everyone may be aware that they are violating your privacy during the course of their day. What if a new receptionist at your physician's office gets a phone call verifying the information from your last doctor's appointment? Who was she/he talking to? A simple phone call, using the right tactics (known as pretexting or social engineering) can spill a lot of information.

Other than social engineering where do these Investigators get the information from? The core resource for a good deal of information comes from databases. However not everything is online (YET!) and a good deal of the research is still done through phone calls, and visiting local courthouses.