Texas law on Computer repair

[TexWebslinger]

http://www.ij.org/first_amendment/tx_co ... _08pr.html

Austin, Texas—The Institute for Justice—the nation’s leading litigators for entrepreneurs who find their rights violated by the government—opens its new Texas Chapter today by filing a lawsuit against the Texas Private Security Board, a state agency, on behalf of computer repair shops that are being told they need a private investigator’s license to continue solving their customers’ computer problems.

Under the new law enacted in 2007, Texas has put computer repair shops on notice that they had better watch their backs any time they work on a computer. If a computer repair technician without a government-issued private investigator’s license takes any actions that the government deems to be an “investigation,” they may be subject to criminal penalties of up to one year in jail and a $4,000 fine, as well as civil penalties of up to $10,000. The definition of “investigation” is very broad and encompasses many common computer repair tasks.


THE story continues...

WOW! Wonder if a waver could be made to then make the repair tech a contract labor person, working for the customer. Wonder if that would side step this law? Otherwise, would an employee of a company now require a PI license ?

[shultzjr]

If you actually read the wording of the law it implies that a computer repair person "when acting in an investigative manner" be a licensed investigator (which I think is reasonable). I do not act as an investigator when I work on peoples' computers, I am only active in the capacity as a repair person and not an investigator. The data has NO APPEAL to me whatsoever. In court they would have to PROVE that I was acting as an investigator to make the jail time and the fine stick. Others have offered that there are actually two ways around the law both with a contract with the customer. In the first case the contract would specifically say that the computer person is not acting in any way as an investigator but as a repair person and the customer does not receive any information about his system as to causality of why it didn't work correctly. The second way is to legally obtain from the owner of the machine the Power Of Attorney and transfer this POA to the computer person while he/she works on the machine. That way even if the computer person learns about the data in an "investigative way" then the computer person is acting as an owner and not a "bystander".

The law is being litigated even as I write this and I am not a lawyer and this is not to be construed as legal advise but I am not nearly as worried about it now as I was yesterday. You can google "private investigator computer technician texas" for more info. The Daily Texan has talked about it a bit, and it is published out of Austin, I believe.

later,
charles....

[TexWebslinger]

The term is a arguable point, open to whoever wishes to use it against another. Don't you INVESTIGATE the system if there is a problem. The term is not limited. It opens areas for anyone, to be more liable both for civil and now criminal actions.

Good Points..Thanks..

The advise of, CYA comes to mind.....
Those that have nothing and don't mind a vacation paid by the state may ignore it, but anyone with anything and can't afford the vacation, should be aware and take steps to avoid a surprise.....Sometimes verbal statements are not what shows up on paper...CYA!

[shultzjr]

I have a friend/customer who used to train pi's in LA. He doesn't have his license in TX though but he is in the process of getting one. So if I need to be a licensed pi that may not be a difficult as I once thought.

later.....