Code of Conduct
The professional standards every Hidden Door engagement is held to — how evidence is gathered, how confidences are kept, and the work we refuse.
1. Lawful collection, without exception
Every method we use must be one we could describe openly in a witness box. We do not intercept communications, access accounts or devices without the authority of the person who controls them, trespass, impersonate anyone, or obtain records by deception or payment. This is not only an ethical position: evidence gathered unlawfully is inadmissible, exposes the client to criminal risk, and destroys the case it was meant to support.
2. Proportionality
The method must match the question. We do not run surveillance where a records check answers it, and we do not extend an enquiry into a subject's private life beyond what the instruction requires. Where a narrower method would do, we use the narrower method, even where the client has authorised more.
3. Contemporaneous documentation
Observation logs are written as events happen, not reconstructed afterwards. Devices are imaged before they are examined and never worked on in original. Every document is recorded with its source and the date it was obtained. This is the unglamorous part of the work and it is the part that survives cross-examination.
4. Observation kept separate from inference
Our reports state what was seen, heard or obtained, and state separately what we believe it means. The two are never merged. Where a finding rests on an assumption, the assumption is named. Where something could not be established, the report says so rather than leaving a silence a reader might fill in.
5. Confidence, in both directions
We do not disclose that a person is a client, including to other clients. We do not discuss one engagement in the course of another. Subjects of an enquiry are entitled to the same discretion: we do not disclose to third parties that someone is being looked into, and we do not leave a trail that would tell them.
6. Duty of care to people who are not our client
Subjects, witnesses and informants have rights and safety of their own. We do not put an informant in a position that exposes them, we do not pressure a witness, and we do not approach a minor or a vulnerable adult without a responsible adult's involvement. Where an enquiry cannot be run without harming someone who is not party to it, we decline it.
7. Work we refuse
Instructions we will not accept, whatever the fee: anything requiring an unlawful method; tracing a person where the purpose appears to be harassment, coercion or violence; work for both sides of the same dispute; matters where the cost of the answer clearly exceeds its value to the client; and work in jurisdictions where investigators cannot operate lawfully or safely. The refusal comes at intake, not after a retainer.
8. Handing findings onward
A report is delivered to the recipients named in the engagement agreement and to nobody else. Where our findings suggest that a person is in danger or that a serious offence is in progress, we will say so to the client and, where the risk is immediate, to the appropriate authority — and the engagement agreement says this in advance, so it is never a surprise.
9. Accountability
Every engagement has a named case officer who scopes it, reviews the evidence and signs the report. If our conduct falls short, write to us and we will investigate it as seriously as we investigate anything else. Our memberships of the Association of Private Detectives & Investigators and the World Association of Detectives carry their own standards, and we hold ourselves to them.
Questions about this document can be sent to [email protected]. Registered in Guwahati, Assam · Jurisdiction: Courts of Kamrup (Metropolitan).