Keeping your Private Life Private

As a private investigator, I am often asked to find people for my clients. It may be to serve a document on that person, perhaps they have skipped town after emptying their employers’ till, or maybe the client has lost touch with someone and wants to reconnect.

Whatever the circumstances, one of my first go to’s is a social media search. On an open account, it’s like mining for gold in a barrel full of gold, and I’m often surprised by how much people do share. 

If the initial name search doesn’t automatically bring up my person or their account is private, I’ll start looking at the people around them and see if they have accessible accounts. If I find my person just sifts around the edges of social media and adds the odd comment on others’ posts, I can often find out more about them through these comments. 

If the person I’m searching for is ‘Jennifer Jingles’, I might find out her handle might be ‘Joe90’ on a closed account, as she’s left comments on her friends’ birthday timelines. If that friend acknowledges ‘Joe90’ with, “Thanks for the well wishes, Jennifer! Hope you and Tim are doing great in your new home in Taihape!”  as an investigator, I’ve suddenly got lucky.

Every time you celebrate your birthday, or the birthday of your children or family members, I now have another piece of information about you. So, first word of advice, keep your settings private, as it creates one layer of protection. 

Another area that had up until recently been a great mine of personal information is the Companies Register, as up until recently, all personal addresses were public. Over the years, I have acquired a lot of information from here. If you haven’t already done so and you are a registered company, check you have ticked the ‘private’ box for your address.

LinkedIn is a little less open to viewing people’s information, but it is still accessible. Again, celebrating milestones in your business is great, but each occasion you post here is open to anyone’s eyes, and it is one more piece of your life that you are sharing with the public.

A quick case study on finding a person – my overseas client wanted to find a family member from an open adoption from the 1960’s. I was provided a first name, a ‘care of’ NZ address from 1990, and a date of birth (which turned out to be incorrect). In this case, as I had no idea of their last name, I had to start with the last address from 1990. I used property title searches to see if I could find a family name, and once I had a possible, I began social media, LinkedIn and company searches. I knocked on a few doors and rang lots of numbers, but eventually I found the subject. 

Aside from phone calls and door knocks with individuals, I got all I needed through publicly accessible information, which was cross-checked and examined. Not everyone wanted to speak to me, but those who did provided me with a surprising amount of information. This entire search took me 10 hours. The missing family member I found had a beautiful reunion recently, but this case demonstrates how, even when little information exists about you, for a determined person, you can still be found.

If you’re not sure how public or private you actually are, get someone you know to Google you and try to track down your home address. Through this exercise, you’ll often be surprised by how many places you appear and how much you may have inadvertently shared publicly. My advice is, this exercise is worth doing;  if you know where your exposure comes from, you can safeguard yourself and your family’s privacy better.

- Liz Williams

Liz Williams is an ex-police officer (Detective and Detective Sergeant) with 24 years’ service. During her policing career, she worked on and led teams on major crimes around New Zealand and Australia. As a private investigator, she works with the same high standard of investigations for defence teams, family court matters, and other legal work. 

Williams Investigations is a NZBA member benefit provider.