Surveillance is a licensed-PI service. We refer.
We do not perform private investigation field work in Florida. When a matter requires surveillance, we coordinate with a licensed Florida private investigator in our network. They run the surveillance under their license, with their contract and their court-ready report. Quinn coordinates the introduction; the licensed PI handles the case directly with you.
The reason this works well: surveillance is its own discipline.
The partners we refer to spend forty plus hours a week running lawful moving and stationary observation under their license.
That is the kind of repetition that produces clean evidence in court.
Our role is to scope the matter, identify the right partner, and pair the field report with digital forensics when the case calls for both.
Is it legal for a private investigator to follow someone in Florida?
Yes, within limits.
A licensed Florida PI may lawfully observe a person in public, where there is no reasonable expectation of privacy, for a legitimate purpose such as a divorce, a custody matter, an insurance claim, or a workplace investigation.
What the law does not allow is trespass, harassment, stalking, wiretapping, or tracking a vehicle the subject solely owns without consent.
That line is exactly why this is licensed work: the partner runs the coverage inside it and produces a court-ready record.
We do not advise you to run surveillance yourself.
How the referral works
- You contact us. NDA-protected scoping conversation, usually thirty minutes.
- We scope the surveillance objective. What you need to confirm or rule out, geography, the subject's known pattern, the timeline.
- We introduce you to the right licensed FL PI. The partner whose specialty (domestic, corporate, insurance defense) and calendar fit your matter.
- The partner engages you directly. Their license, their contract, their report. They scope the surveillance plan, set the retainer, and run the coverage.
What we do, what the partner does
- SleuthX (Quinn): consultation, scoping, partner introduction, and any digital forensics companion work, including phone forensics, account compromise review, OSINT on the subject's online footprint, and stalkerware sweeps when surveillance is being run because of a stalking concern. The digital findings are court-admissible and explainable on cross-examination, not a black-box result.
- Licensed PI partner: moving and stationary surveillance, video and photo evidence, observation logs, vehicle and pattern documentation, the full investigative report under their license with a custodian declaration of authenticity for the photo and video evidence (FRE 901 and 902), and court testimony on what they personally observed.
Who this is for
Surveillance referrals route to four buyer types:
- spouses and partners gathering evidence for divorce or custody
- attorneys building a litigation file
- insurance defense counsel and SIU teams running sub rosa on suspect claims
- and businesses investigating employee misconduct or competitor activity
Each of those gets a partner who specializes in that exact buyer type.
Why a referral, not direct delivery
Florida Statute 493 reserves private investigation work for Class C licensees.
Rather than dilute our digital forensics practice into a field-work practice we do not run, we keep the disciplines separate.
You get a surveillance specialist for the field portion and a digital forensics specialist for the device portion, instead of one person trying to do both halves at half the depth.
The digital surveillance companion
Physical surveillance is a saturated field; the differentiator is what runs alongside it.
When a matter has a digital dimension, whether a subject's phone, hidden apps, account-access patterns, an online footprint, or stalkerware on your own devices, we run court-ready, explainable digital forensics in parallel with the partner's field coverage.
Most PI shops cannot offer that half, and it is the reason to start a surveillance matter here.
Cross-references
- Investigator referral hub
- Infidelity investigation referral
- Insurance fraud investigation referral
- For attorneys
What this costs
Surveillance rates are set by the licensed PI partner, not by us. Florida hourly rates typically run one hundred and twenty-five to two hundred and fifty dollars per investigator-hour with a retainer up front; two-investigator coverage roughly doubles it. We do not mark up partner fees.
The SleuthX digital companion is examiner-delivered, under our own engagement letter.
Phone forensics, account-access review, OSINT, and stalkerware sweeps run on a $5,000 refundable engagement retainer, with done-for-you work from $3,000 and $400/hr flat for anything beyond.
