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Breaking down the process of the Public Act 146

Posted on July 22, 2008 | Filed Under Computer Forensics, Electronic Discovery

Public Act 146 impacts the computer forensics industry by requiring all investigators to become licensed in the State of Michigan.  Individuals and companies that meet the qualifications have had to scramble due to the immediate effective date of May 28, 2008 and the stiff penalty of a four year felony charge for none licensed individuals.  The time table you can expect is roughly about two weeks for the collection of information you will need to meet the required qualifications listed below in the link.  The application time can range from 4 to 16 weeks to receive the license.  The last time I checked they posted 12 to 16 weeks to be safe. 

The problem that people in the industry are facing is that the act was implemented/rolled out without any planning or grace period to adjust to the new act.  The impact of this new law has affected our current clients and case load prior to the act passing.  The application time period is not fast enough and there will be no time to compensate for the loss of current and potential business.  We have been one of the lucky ones to have a diversified array of services in information security to absorb the impact of this act passing. 

The Computer Forensics Industry and DLEG will have to work closely together to bring Public Act 146 and the industry into compliance.  The concerning area that will have a greater impact on the industry is the affiliations with other states on computer forensics investigations.  As the network grows and grows in a global economy so does the need for speed and availability of accessing the data in any location.  Public Act 146 has impacted the security and IT industry tremendously from computer forensics, eDiscovery and monitoring of individuals.  According to the act an investigation starts when you are targeting or questioning an individual’s:

(e)(ii) – the identity, habits, conduct, business, occupation, honesty, integrity, credibility, trustworthiness, efficiency, loyalty, activity, movement, whereabouts, affiliations, associations, transactions, acts, reputation or character of a person.

In the IT world this could be the tracking of IP addresses, MAC address, VOIP, email address, etc., that would link the computer to the individual.  This is where I would express extreme caution based on the general statement of targeting individuals.  The impact reaches beyond the computer forensics professional and now applies itself to all investigations as any investigation in today’s working world deals with some kind of computer based evidence that will be used to prove an individual’s wrong doing. 

I believe that Public Act 146 will be good for the industry once we get through the scramble of compliance with the act.  Overall Public Act 146 will become a milestone for the information security industry and serve to increase the amount of professionalism that should be expected by the professionals in the field. 

Forms & Publications – Private Detective Form http://www.dleg.state.mi.us/dms/results.asp?docowner=BCSC&doccat=Private+Detectives&Search=Search

www.michigan.gov/commerciallicensing