There are about 25,000 private investigators in Australia. This study was based on 40 in-depth interviews in Queensland and New South Wales. It was an attempt to assess what private investigators do, how effective they are, the legal and ethical issues facing them, and how their efforts can be maximized by their clients, especially agencies affected by fraud. The private security industry includes security guards, crowd controllers, private investigators, process servers, and debt recovery agents. The latter two are often licensed together as “commercial agents.” Results of the study show that private investigators presented a very mixed work profile. The larger firms provided diverse services with the majority of work in surveillance or factual investigations. A small number of firms were highly specialized. Private investigators, process servers, and debt recovery agents occupy a critical place in the justice system. There are pressures on these private agents to breach the law in pursuit of goals of law enforcement and crime reduction. All respondents attested to a change of consciousness among practitioners in the past 20 years in terms of a greater respect for privacy principles and an increased perception of the probability of being exposed and sanctioned for breaching the law. Interviewees were strongly of the opinion that tougher licensing and enhanced pre-service training were required to underwrite competency and integrity. They were united in the view that they could provide greater justice to victims of crimes and other wrongs if governments allowed greater controlled access to information. 1 table, 9 references